Too Close
by scared of clouds
Summary: Five years after his defeat of Voldemort, Harry Potter is receiving death threats. Head Auror Christopher Vance needs to provide him with a protection detail, but given Potter's history of refusing to co-operate with the Ministry, who can he send? Harry/Ginny A/U. Cover art by Viria. Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Harry Potter.
1. Prologue

**A/N: This has been partially written since Christmas, when the idea for it was completely stuck in my head. I've been really unsure about posting it, but ended up finishing it this week because I just couldn't focus on my other fics. So I figured what the hell? Some of you guys might actually like it.  
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Article from the Daily Prophet, 19th February 2003

**Harry Potter Takes Seat in Wizengamot**

Today, the Potter family seat in the Wizengamot was filled for the first time in 23 years, as Harry Potter joined the deliberations over the Muggle-born Registration Act, which has been re-submitted for the fourth time. Mr Potter inherited the seat aged only one - after his father, James, was killed fighting He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named - and prior to this day has never taken up his seat; speculation as to what could have caused him to suddenly take up his birth-right is rife.

Harry Potter was left an orphan after the famous events of October 31st 1981, when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was temporarily defeated in Godric's Hollow by the combined efforts of James and Lily Potter. Unfortunately, their struggle cost them their lives, but their year-old son Harry somehow survived the killing curse that was aimed at him. After their deaths, Mr Potter was taken in by his godfather, Sirius Black, and was raised quietly away from the majority of wizarding society; few people have been allowed into their inner circle. It has often been speculated that this continued mistrust of outsiders has its roots in Peter Pettigrew's betrayal of the Potters that led to the fateful confrontation with You-Know-Who, and ultimately to their deaths. Pettigrew, a childhood friend of the Potter's, remains in Azkaban for his crimes.

Little is actually known about Harry Potter's life so far: he did not attend Hogwarts, no record of his schooling or employment has ever been made public - other than his exam results, which are held on file by the Ministry in accordance with the law - and none of his friends or acquaintances has ever been persuaded to discuss him. The only truly well-known facts about the reclusive Mr Potter are that he was responsible for the death of You-Know-Who at the Battle of Hogwarts in 1998, and that in the last three years he has become one of the most famous and successful Quidditch players in the league. He currently holds the record for most consecutive snitch catches – he is unbeaten in the last two seasons - and his team, the Falmouth Falcons have won the league every year since he was recruited three seasons ago. Oliver Wood, coach of the Falcons has always refused to discuss where and how Harry Potter came to his attention.

Today, Mr Potter proved that while the wizarding world knows little about him, he is extremely well informed about the realities of our society as he argued vociferously and eloquently against the Muggle-born Registration Act. While we may never know enough about Mr Potter to understand his apparently sudden change of heart about using his hereditary seat, it seems clear that he intends to use it to its fullest, and that he means to live up to his father's reputation as an avid defender of muggleborn rights.

The final vote on the Muggle-born Registration Act will be held next week; turn to page three for details of the proposed legislation, or to page six for more on Harry Potter.

Article from the Daily Prophet, 22nd February 2003

**Quidditch Match Targeted by Death Eaters**

The terrorist organisation known as the Death Eaters today launched an unprecedented and vicious attack on the Quidditch match between the Falmouth Falcons and the Appleby Arrows.

An hour into the game, several masked individuals appeared in the crowd and used extremely powerful exploding curses to target the stands containing the Falcons supporters; three people have been confirmed dead, and estimations of injuries run into the hundreds.

It is speculated that the reason for the attack was Harry Potter's recent very public opposition to the Muggle-born Registration Act; the Death Eaters main cause has always been to place limitations on the so-called 'dilution' of magical blood, and the Act is somewhat sympathetic to their movement.

Attacks by the Death Eaters have been increasingly rare over the last five years, after the final defeat of their founder and leader took its toll on their organisation, but the events of today clearly show that the few who remain have no intention of fading into obscurity anytime soon.

While the Ministry no longer considers them a high priority, every ranking Death Eater remains a fugitive from the law, and the auror department will no doubt be stepping up their efforts to round up the last of these criminals after yesterday's attack, which brought back chilling memories of the Wizarding wars that so blighted our society in the last century.

**Full report by our match correspondent: page 2**

**A History of the Death Eaters: page 10**

**Ministry reaction: page 5**

Article from the Daily Prophet, 23rd February 2003

**Minister Shacklebolt Responds to Attack**

At a press conference this morning, Minister for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt reiterated the Ministry's commitment to tracking down all fugitive Death Eaters.

"Our society has spent too long rebuilding itself to be threatened by the remnants of what has always been a terrorist organisation – attacks such as the one on the Quidditch ground in Falmouth simply serve to remind us of exactly what we fought so hard to defeat for so many years; a group who have no respect for our society or our way of life.

To those Death Eaters who remain loyal to their cause, who persist in adhering to the ravings of a dead megalomaniac, I say: we are looking for you, we will find you, and you will answer for every one of your crimes."

Harry Potter also released a statement to the press today, in an extremely uncharacteristic move for the exceptionally private young man:

"My thoughts and sympathies are with the families and loved ones of all those who were injured in this violent, criminal act. I don't know what these people are trying to accomplish, but they will not succeed by committing atrocities against the wizarding population. Voldemort is dead, and he is not coming back; it is time his ideology died with him.

Some people have suggested that this attack was intended to express displeasure at my stance on the Muggle-born Registration Act, and to pressure me into changing my position on this law. I cannot say whether this is the case or not, but I can say that I refuse to bow to the will of a terrorist group. My opinion on this matter remains unchanged, and I intend to vote against the Act, as I have always stated I would."

**Harry Potter: A Lifetime as a Target – Special Report by Rita Skeeter, pages 6-9**

**Wanted Death Eater Profiles – pages 22 and 23**

Article from the Daily Prophet, 25th February 2003

**Muggle-born Registration Act Defeated in Wizengamot**

Today the Wizengamot voted to discard the proposed Muggle-born Registration Act, which had been proposed for the fourth time. The final result was thirty-seven against, twelve for and one abstaining, a resounding defeat for the proposed law.

The legislation, which would have required all Muggle-born witches and wizards to register with the Ministry of Magic and receive official documentation of their magical status, has divided opinion in the magical community.

Some have claimed that it is the only way to keep a truly accurate record of the magical population, while others have long felt that it amounts to little more than a form of segregation. There now seems little chance of the legislation being revived again, after such a definitive setback.

Members of the Wizengamot refused to comment on the vote as they left the session this morning, but the Prophet has learned that the Death Eaters sent a statement to the Ministry of Magic soon afterwards; it is believed that they are promising retribution on the Wizengamot for their rejection of the law, and that threats were also made against Harry Potter in specific.

Article from the Daily Prophet, 4th March 2003

**You-Know-Who: Gone, But Not Forgotten**

It has been nearly five years since You-Know-Who was killed at the Battle of Hogwarts by Harry Potter, but his legacy of violence and disparity lives on.

In the week since the Muggle-born Registration Act was rejected by the Wizengamot, there have been no fewer than four assaults on prominent members and their families, which a source at the Ministry tells the Daily Prophet have all been attributed to the Death Eaters. Several other members have reportedly received threats, and the auror department is believed to be stepping up its pursuit of these wanted criminals, as well as increasing security measures around members of the Wizengamot.

Concerns have also been expressed about the safety measures currently in place the Ministry itself which are currently being reviewed by the Minister, and security procedures for large events, including Quidditch matches, are also expected to change as a result of recent events.

The last few weeks have seen more Death Eater activity than has been reported in many years, leading to concerns that the terrorist group may be experiencing a revival. Unofficial sources at the Ministry state that the Minister is determined not to allow the group to revitalise itself; the effects of the last war linger on, and the Ministry is determined that the Death Eaters will not regain any ground.

Article from the Daily Prophet, 10th March 2003

**Harry Potter: "I will not be cowed by threats"**

After yesterday's leak from the Ministry, when several anonymous threatening letters regarding Harry Potter were inadvertently made public, the reclusive Quidditch star has issued a statement through his lawyer.

"I am aware that a number of threats have been made towards me; this is not unusual in my profession as a Quidditch player, nor is it uncommon for a member of the Wizengamot. I have chosen to ignore these threats, recognising them for what they are; the ravings of unstable individuals unable or unwilling to adapt to the fact that their ideals have no place in our society. I refuse to be cowed by the words of people who lack both the bravery and integrity to put their names to their opinions. I will continue to fulfil my commitments both to my team and to the Wizengamot, regardless of how many letters these cowards choose to send."

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Christopher Vance slammed the file closed on the newspaper clippings and sighed heavily; just when he'd thought his job couldn't get more complicated, the universe had dumped this in his lap. He closed the file on a groan of frustration and threw it into his in-tray for further consideration later. He grabbed his quill and pulled yesterday's field reports towards him, intent on at least making a dent in his paperwork while his brain was still semi-functional.

After a few minutes of attempting to decipher the handwriting of one of his newest field operatives, he flung the report down in disgust and scribbled an angry memo about requiring paperwork to be in a _legible_ script in future. He sent the memo and watched it fly out of the door towards the desk of Nymphadora Tonks, Head of Mentoring; she'd pass the message on to the recent Academy graduates. And by pass it on, he meant "yell it until she was hoarse"; Tonks was the finest staff trainer he'd ever seen.

He leant back in his chair and closed his eyes. He had a headache. He'd had a headache _every damn day_ since he'd become Head of the Auror Department. Why had he ever thought it would be a good idea to take this job?

'I asked myself that every bloody day I spent in this office.' The low growl of Alastor Moody came from his open doorway, and he spun his chair around and opened his eyes.

'You didn't tell me it was going to be like this you cantankerous old git. I would never have let you retire if I'd known.'

Alastor grinned; it made his face look even more scarred and lopsided than normal. 'You get used to it Vance. I recommend firewhisky – Merlin knows it got me through some days I wouldn't have made it through otherwise.'

'I'll bear it in mind.' He squinted at his old boss, and waved his hand at the armchair in front of his desk in invitation. Moody stumped across to the chair and dropped down into it, his eyes darting around his old office.

'I don't miss this place one little bit.'

Vance grinned for the first time in hours. 'You're a lying bastard.'

Moody barked a laugh. 'Well, I don't miss the paperwork. Or the politics.'

'Tell me about it. Death Eaters and Unforgivables I can handle; Harry Potter and reporters and interfering Ministers, I can't.'

Moody cocked his head to one side in interest. 'Harry Potter?'

Vance grimaced. 'Bane of my life at the moment.' He looked across at Moody and sighed. He didn't have a clue what to do anymore, but there was a possibility that Moody might; the man had been head of department for years and he had more practical experience than anyone Vance knew.

'You've seen the newspaper reports, about his stance in the Wizengamot, the Death Eater attack on his game?' He waited for Moody to nod sharply in acknowledgment before he continued. 'So everyone _thinks _he's being specifically targeted; what we haven't publicised is that we're pretty much _certain _that he is. He's received several threats – not that he hasn't had a few of them over the years anyway – but these seem serious. We reckon that the Death Eaters are out for him in a big way now.'

Vance scrubbed a hand over his face and rested his elbows on his desk. 'Problem is, I've been told to provide him with a protection detail, and he's having none of it. So far I've sent four of my best aurors to him, and he just sends them straight back; won't have anything to do with them. I'm tearing my hair out here Moody.'

Moody tapped his foot as he considered his words. 'Why don't you just let him get on with it? He took out Voldemort, I'm sure he can handle the dregs of the Death Eaters.'

Vance snorted. 'That's more or less what he said to my aurors, and if it was down to me that's exactly what I'd sodding well do, but between his team's owners and the Minister, my back's against the wall here. I need to offer Potter some sort of protection, but he's resisting my every effort; I need to get him to co-operate.'

'Well, which aurors have you tried sending?' Moody asked with interest.

'Sturridge, Cornel, Stevens and Pikely.'

'Good blokes.' Moody nodded thoughtfully. 'And Potter just told them to bugger off?'

'Pretty much, although in much nicer terms. Told them he had no intention of being babysat, he wouldn't curtail any of his activities under any circumstances, and he certainly wouldn't be seen to be overly concerned about the Death Eater threat in public.'

Moody leant back in his chair and folded his arms. 'Sounds like Potter.'

Vance started at that. 'I forgot you knew him.'

'Yep. Knew his parents too. Did you ever meet them?'

'Once or twice, but that's it. I couldn't say I knew them.'

Moody nodded slowly and leaned forward, his good eye focusing on Vance. 'Interesting pair they were; both as stubborn and hard-headed and difficult as each other. It's no wonder Potter's a bloody-minded bastard with those two for parents. People always say he takes after his father, and they're right. He got his mother's brains and sense of fairness, that much is true, but he inherited a hell of a lot of traits straight from James; he's a natural flier, he's ridiculously competitive and he's an old-fashioned, overly chivalrous sod with an inflated sense of honour.'

Vance nodded politely, even though he was baffled by the route this conversation had suddenly taken. 'Is that right?'

Moody continued with barely an acknowledgment of his comment. 'And his godfather, Sirius; well, he's cut from the same cloth. Makes sense I suppose, when you think he was James Potter's best friend – and now I come to think of it, they're bloody related of course.'

Vance huffed out an exasperated breath. 'This is all fascinating, but I don't see how it's going to help me.'

'Then you aren't listening Vance; I'm telling you about Potter. He's good at flying, fighting, magic and arguing his corner, and he'll take on any man you send him in an argument; chances are your aurors aren't putting up much of a fight when confronted with an irate Boy-Who-Lived anyway.'

Vance stared. 'I'm still not following. What's your point?'

'It's obvious what you need to do; send a woman.'

Vance felt his eyebrows shoot upwards, an expression of confused surprise settling across his face; Moody gave another of those lopsided grins as he carried on speaking.

'Potter won't shy away from a confrontation with a man, but those old-fashioned manners of his make it difficult for him to be anything less than charming with a woman; and he doesn't spend much time around women anyway, so he's much more unsure about how to handle them. So send him the feistiest female auror you've got, someone who'll go toe-to-toe with him and refuse to back down just because he's Harry-sodding-Potter. He won't know what hit him.'

Vance sat still for a moment, frozen in place as Moody's words sank in; then a grin spread slowly across his face as he rose from his chair and headed for the door of his office. He stuck his head out and yelled one word at the top of his voice.

'Weasley!'

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**A/N: So that's the prologue. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this :)  
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**Anyway, I'd love to hear what you think so if you have a moment to fill in that little review box, I'll be very grateful!**


	2. Your New Assignment

**A/N: Thank you to everyone who's shown an interest in this story, and a special thank you to the anon who told me they'd been checking their email every day for an update – you essentially gave me the push I needed into getting this done and posted!**

**Anyway, everybody: meet Ginny Weasley.**

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The door slammed shut behind Ginny Weasley as she entered Vance's office. She had to admit, she was slightly apprehensive; the manner in which she had been summoned to the office wasn't typical for Vance, and she defied anyone not to jump a little when their surname was bellowed across the entire floor by their boss. He was worrying her a little at the moment; his eyes seemed to hold an oddly manic glint, and the smirking presence of Moody wasn't helping her mental state.

Vance cleared his throat and gestured to a chair. 'Take a seat Weasley.'

Ginny sat down, clenching her fists in her lap. She tucked her feet back and adjusted her position in the chair to try and make herself seem taller. It was a habit she'd gotten into ever since she'd enrolled at the Auror Academy. When you were as petite as she was, people often had a problem taking you seriously, and she'd found one of the simplest ways to head off potential difficulties was just to carry yourself in a way that made you seem bigger than you were.

Failing that, she'd learned not to spare the hexes. People might have trouble taking a diminutive redhead seriously, but they couldn't _fail_ to take some of her jinxes seriously. Many of her fellow classmates at the Academy had found themselves staring down the wrong end of her wand, but none of them had ever done it twice.

Vance was still staring at her appraisingly, and she wanted nothing more than to shift in her seat under the scrutiny, but she refused to allow any visible signs of nerves to escape.

'What do you know about Harry Potter?' Vance spoke suddenly, and Ginny found herself wrong-footed. She'd expected a briefing, a dressing-down, an assignment; she'd imagined all kinds of scenarios, but certainly not a question and answer session about a Quidditch player.

'As much as anyone else I would imagine sir. Which isn't much.' She spoke in a monotone, keeping her eyes directly ahead of her as she reminded herself that _absolutely no-one_ in the office could _possibly _be aware of the rather large Harry Potter poster on her bedroom wall at home. At least, they'd _better_ not be, or Ron would be vomiting slugs right up until his retirement.

'Why don't you tell us what everyone knows then Weasley.' Moody spoke from behind her, a touch of amusement colouring his voice.

Ginny glanced quickly at her boss, who gave a sharp nod of assent. She licked her lips briefly then mentally kicked herself for the nervous twitch as she began to speak, delivering her words in a formal manner as if she was giving a field report.

'His full name is Harry James Potter. Parents were Lily and James Potter, and they were both killed fighting You-Know-Who…'

'Voldemort.' Interrupted Moody.

Ginny turned slightly in her seat to look at him and he raised his eyebrows and looked unfalteringly back at her. 'Use the name Weasley. Too many people were afraid of it for too long.'

With a shrug that she intended to be seen as a gesture of indifference, Ginny turned back to Vance and continued. 'They were both killed fighting Voldemort, making Harry the last of the Potters. He inherited the family Wizengamot seat and fortune, but couldn't touch either until he turned seventeen. Standard wizarding law.'

Vance picked up a folder from the in-tray on his desk and began to leaf through it; she paused for a moment, but then he looked up and make an impatient gesture for her to carry on.

'Er, after their death he was raised by his Godfather Sirius Black, and the pair of them became rather reclusive. They were - are - rarely seen in public, and Harry was apparently educated at home because he sat and passed all his exams despite not attending a school. He was a member of the Order of the Phoenix during the Second Wizarding War, as was Sirius Black, and he cast the curse that killed _Voldemort_ at the Battle of Hogwarts.'

Vance's lips twitched as he heard the deliberately sarcastic tone in which she spoke Voldemort's name. Moody reckoned feisty was the way to go right? Well, he'd seen the reports Weasley's instructors had written during her time in training, and while there may have been a few of her classmates who didn't respect her going _in_ to the Academy, they'd sure as hell learned to respect her by the time they left. Her ability to fling a well-placed hex was apparently formidable, and her temperament everything you'd expect from the clichés about redheads. She was _perfect. _He almost felt sorry for Potter.

'He signed to the Falmouth Falcons three years ago as their seeker, and is now one of the most successful seekers in league history. He has also recently taken up his family seat in the Wizengamot and has begun to involve himself in politics.'

She sat back a little in her chair and raised her eyebrows at Vance. 'That's it I'm afraid; all common knowledge I'm sure. There isn't even much in the way of speculation about him in the gossip rags; he's too private to give them any real ammunition. No-one even knows where he lives.'

Vance held the folder he'd been browsing out to her. She leaned forward and took it, her eyes widening when she saw the name printed on the outside.

'Well Weasley, now's your chance to find out where he lives. He's your new assignment.'

'He's _what_?' She heard the incredulous tone in her own voice and gave herself a mental face-palm. One didn't habitually use that tone of voice with your boss; it was probably considered inappropriate. She heard Moody stifle a laugh behind her, and she could swear Vance was biting his lip to keep from smiling. He glanced down at his desk for a moment and when he looked back up at her his face was appropriately sombre again.

'You worked the clear-up after that bloody fiasco at the Falcons match didn't you?' he enquired, his eyes piercing.

Ginny was a little taken aback by the sudden swerve the conversation seemed to have taken, and her response was more tentative than usual. 'Well, yes, I think all of the aurors who aren't currently on anything active went to that, but I don't see how…'

'Potter was the target.' Vance interrupted her. He leaned across the desk and tapped the folder. 'You'll want to read the folder, familiarise yourself with it. For some reason, the remnants of the Death Eaters have decided to pursue their vendetta against Potter.'

Moody snorted and moved until he was standing next to Vance's desk. 'Merlin's balls Vance. "For some reason". Potter put an end to all their hopes of blood purity with one well-placed spell, and he's a symbol of everything they hate. They are _always _going to go for him if they think they have an opportunity.'

'Harry Potter has been a target for Death Eaters for years. Why would he decide he needs protection now?' Ginny placed the file on her lap and placed her clasped hands on top of it, ignoring the former Head Aurors interruption. Vance stifled another grin, pleased to note how quickly her mind leapt to salient points.

'_He_ hasn't. He hasn't asked for Ministry protection at any point, even though I have no doubt they would have supplied it.' Vance sighed. 'The owners of the Falmouth Falcons have however, and they've leant on the Minister, who's leaning on _me_. He's a valuable asset, and they want him protected, whether he thinks he needs to be or not. And from the Minister's point of view, he does _not _need the Death Eaters to be able to claim responsibility for the killing of a war hero.'

Ginny leaned forward slightly, her lips pursed as she considered something. 'This all seems a little overboard for a few threats sir. Presumably he's received plenty in his lifetime. Why are they taking this so seriously?'

'Oh, she's good.' Moody muttered under his breath as he folded his arms and stared out of the window next to Vance's desk, pretending he wasn't listening to what was quite obviously a confidential conversation. Vance sighed and picked his wand up from his desk. He wasn't naïve enough to think that there was anything he knew about this that someone hadn't already gossiped to Moody about. That man knew damn near everything that was going on, always had. It had baffled him as a junior auror, until he'd realised later in his career than Moody's seeming omniscience was simply a result of superior information gathering.

He tapped a drawer of his filing cabinet in an intricate pattern, and it disgorged a roll of parchment into his hands. He tapped it on the desk as he thought for a few seconds, then he looked at Ginny, pointing the scroll at her threateningly as he spoke.

'Only a handful of people know about this Weasley, so you can consider this confidential, if-you-tell-anyone-I-will-know-and-I-will-kill-you information. Got it?'

He waited for her to nod before he continued. 'They actually managed to ambush him on his way out of the stadium from a training session and injure him a few days ago; that's never happened before. He had a broken leg, three cracked ribs and a fractured skull. He's fine of course – finest treatment money can buy will do that – and he's resting at home, but it put the wind up his team owners. They do _not _want their star player injured. Hence, they requested Ministry protection for him.'

Ginny nodded her understanding, and Vance handed her the scroll he'd just withdrawn from his files. 'That is the field report relating to the ambush. It does not go into the folder, it does not get duplicated in any way, it does not leave the auror department. You will read it and return it to me as soon as you are finished.'

Ginny nodded again, her mind too busy trying to wring coherency from all the information she'd been given to even try and find a witty remark in response. Vance leaned back in his chair and Moody turned back to face them both, as if he hadn't just listened to every word that had been said. Ginny didn't comment on this seeming lapse in confidentiality by the Head of Department. Moody was a legend, and it was widely joked that even in his retirement he knew more about what was going on than the Minister. If Mad-Eye Moody wasn't trustworthy, no-one was.

'Read the file, report to me in two hours for full details of the assignment. Any questions?'

Ginny picked up her folders and tucked them under one arm as she stood up. 'Just one sir. Why me? I'm fairly new out of the Academy, only worked two active cases. Surely you want someone with more experience.'

Vance smiled at her. 'Don't underestimate yourself Weasley. I've heard a lot about you from your tutors, and I'm prepared to say that I think you're _exactly_ what this particular case needs.'

Ginny ignored the snort from Moody and looked at her boss with a certain amount of suspicion. 'Thank you. I think.'

Moody snorted again, and Ginny rolled her eyes as she turned and left the office.

Men.

**(H&G) (H&G) (H&G) (H&G) (H&G) (H&G) (H&G)**

Ginny left Vance's office and crossed the floor towards her desk. She kept her expression carefully neutral as she walked, and the file tucked securely under her arm with the name on it facing inwards. She wasn't foolish enough to think that the auror office was immune to leaks, and she didn't need Vance on her case for letting any information slip.

She ignored the curious looks from her co-workers, and resolutely looked ahead until she slid into her desk chair, carefully placing the file upside down on her desk and placing another on top of it. She began to peruse the daily "Wanted" update that she'd been looking at when she was called in by Vance, her expression studious, and waited for the inevitable.

'Hey Weasley.' Michael Corner perched on the edge of her desk and gave her what he probably thought was a charming smile.

'Hey yourself.' She murmured in response, eyes still fixed on her papers.

'Soooo. What did Vance want with you? Something interesting I hope.' he asked without preamble, and Ginny mentally bemoaned his complete lack of tact.

'Oh, nothing much.' She answered breezily. 'Moody's here and they're having a catch-up. Just wanted to ask about my mum and dad, that's all. Sorry to disappoint you.'

'Oh.' He did sound disappointed, which made her think she'd definitely been right about her fellow aurors watching her since she'd come back from Vance's office. He must have seen her leave with a file and assumed she'd been given an assignment. That was the problem with aurors she mused silently, entertained by the notion. They noticed things, which made it bloody hard to keep secrets around them.

'Thought I saw you come out of the office with a file.' Michael asked, apparently now attempting the direct approach as a questioning technique.

'Yeah, field reports from the Falcons thing.' Ginny answered absently as she leaned forward to scribble a note. 'Wanted me to collate the info.'

'Oh.' He said again, and now she was looking down at her desk Ginny was free to roll her eyes in exasperation without fear of being seen.

Michael slid off her desk and stood alongside it, tucking his hands in his pockets and rocking on his heels for a moment. She looked up at him, perplexed to find him still there. He looked at her and, feeling rather uncomfortable at being observed like a caged pixie, she raised her eyebrows questioningly.

'Did you, er want to get some lunch?' She must have looked a little alarmed, because he gestured at a small crowd gathered near the door and spoke again very quickly. 'We're going to the Wand and Potion.'

'Oh, er, thanks but no. I said I'd meet a friend.' Ginny smiled insincerely and Michael nodded and quickly retreated from her desk and joined the group, leaving her slightly baffled and more than a little flustered.

Shaking it off, she glanced quickly round the room and observed that the vast majority of her colleagues had now gone for lunch; there was no one within three desks of her at the moment. Deeming it safe, she slid Potter's file out and flipped it open.

Harry Potter. She was supposed to provide a security detail for Harry Potter. Merlin, the world was weird.

She'd been a Falcon's supporter for her whole life – at least she had better taste than Ron – and he'd been her favourite player from his very first game for them, when he'd jumped off his broomstick to grab the snitch from under the nose of the opposing seeker after the core in his had suddenly failed. One of the beaters had grabbed him as he'd plummeted towards the ground, still holding the snitch firmly in one hand, and she, along with several thousand other Falcon's supporters, had immediately worshipped him for his insane dedication.

And now his life was in danger, and apparently she was expected to take responsibility for keeping him alive and playing. No pressure there then. Just the hopes and dreams of every Falcon's supporter in Britain resting on it.

She dropped the papers, took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes. This was just a protection detail. She ought to be able do it in her sleep; the fact that it was Harry Potter didn't, or rather shouldn't, make a difference. She'd always known, ever since she'd applied to the Academy, that one day she could be responsible for the life of someone else. She just hadn't expected it to be this soon after she graduated, and she hadn't expected it to be someone she admired.

She sat there for a few moments with her head in her hands, just allowing her brain to freewheel. It only took her a minute or two to compose herself, then she reached for the file and began to leaf through it, carefully reading through the newspaper clippings and making her own notes from the auror reports, including the field report of the recent ambush; Vance hadn't explicitly forbidden _that _after all. The she pulled out her field report from the attack on the Falcon's game and added her thoughts on that as well.

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Precisely two hours after she had first left it, she was knocking on Vance's office door, files and notes held carefully in front of her chest.

'Weasley, if that's you, come in. If it's not, come back later!'

Ginny suppressed an uncharacteristic giggle and pushed the door open. Vance's stress levels were rocketing over this Potter thing, though she had no idea why; providing VIPs with protection when necessary was pretty run of the mill stuff for the auror department.

He smiled at her, or tried to. It ended up being more of a grimace.

'Take a seat Weasley. Look through all those papers?'

'Yes sir.' Ginny answered dutifully, seating herself in the same chair as before and handing back the original copies of the paperwork, including the special report.

Vance took it and tapped it against his chin thoughtfully as he leaned back in his chair and studied her. 'And your thoughts?'

Ginny licked her lips nervously before she answered; she really had to break that habit, having a tell was bad news in this job.

'Well sir, it seems to me like it should be quite a simple job. Standard protection detail, but much less complicated than many others would be. For a public figure, Potter doesn't spend much time in the limelight. His home isn't public knowledge, and I would imagine it's rather heavily warded, given his past. I would say that the time he's most vulnerable is exactly when and where they attacked him – travelling to and from the stadium. They know when he's going to be there, and they obviously also know how and where he arrives and leaves.'

Vance nodded along. 'Agreed. The Falcons will be upgrading their security presence at the stadium, and the new measures are likely to be implemented at all the other League One stadiums as well, so that should help. We're also calling in some experts to help key up the wards.'

He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his desk and focusing on Ginny. 'But you've already put your finger on the problem haven't you? He's probably fine when he's actually _in_ the stadium, so that's not where you will need to focus. Your job is to make sure he's safe everywhere else; at home, travelling, and anywhere else he decides to go. So you assess the protection levels on his home, and you advise him on his other activities, whatever they may be, and you keep his arse alive.'

Ginny nodded. 'Is this going to be a full time assignment?'

Vance grinned. 'Oh, you bet your arse it is Weasley. You can go home at night, but during the day you stick to Potter like glue. Understand?'

'Sir.' Ginny nodded sharply, her posture rigid as she felt the sharp eyes of her boss appraising her. Vance reached for his quill and pulled a new piece of paperwork over, his eyes scanning it as he continued to brief her.

'This is top-level confidential, so you report to no-one but myself and Tonks; she will be your normal point of contact.' Noting Ginny's confused look, he paused briefly before offering an explanation. 'I know she's the staff trainer not a case handler, but we want this assignment kept quiet and Tonks knows how to keep her mouth shut; she also has more free time to focus on this should you need her.'

Ginny nodded once to signal her understanding, and Vance continued to speak, looking down at his papers as his quill moved across them. 'If anyone asks, you can tell them you're on protection duty, but under no circumstances reveal _who_ you're protecting. I spoke to Sirius Black earlier, and he's expecting you some time this afternoon at Potter's house; your assignment officially starts tomorrow, but it would be best to introduce yourself beforehand I think. He's leaving the floo open for you anyway.'

Ginny almost nodded again, but stopped herself just in time; you'd think she was incapable of a different response. Instead she rose from her seat and began to move towards the door. 'Yes sir. I can go straightaway; I've cleared all my outstanding work.'

Vance lifted his head from his paperwork and raised an eyebrow. 'That might make you the most efficient worker in this office.'

Ginny paused and looked back, her hand resting lightly on the door handle. 'I don't do things by halves.'

She left Vance's office and wandered back to her desk, where she threw her things into her bag and locked her drawers with a complex motion of her wand. She left the office without speaking to anyone – though she did pause to wave across to Tonks, who gave her an answering wink – and headed for the floo.

Stepping into the fireplace, she felt a brief frisson of nerves again, but she steeled herself and whispered her location, just in case anyone was listening. The powder engulfed her, and then she was being spun through green flames, finally coming to a halt in an enormous stone fireplace in a large kitchen, stumbling a little and leaning against the wall for support.

'Well well. I think it's safe to say that you're_ not_ what I was expecting.' A rich deep voice sounded from in front of her, and she looked up into the silvery eyes of Sirius Black.

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**A/N: If you have a moment to leave me your thoughts, please do. **

**I just want to mention something quickly here: Ginny's Harry poster. Yes, Ginny has had a bit of a crush on Harry. I felt it was an essential part of the make-up of her character in the books that she admired him from a distance without really knowing him, and I made sure there was an element of that in this story. I just want to reassure everyone that it does not mean that she will be a pushover for Harry. She wasn't in canon, and she won't be in this. **

**I'm shutting up now.**


	3. A Clash Of Opinions

**A/N: I'd offer some excuses for the wait, but you're not really interested.  
**

**Anyway. Enter Harry Potter and Sirius Black.**

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Ginny dusted herself down and straightened up, trying to recover a little dignity from her rather clumsy entrance. She glanced swiftly round the kitchen she'd arrived in, trying to take in as much as she possibly could without making it too obvious. If there was one thing auror training did for you, it was make you paranoid; you started to instantly assess any room you were in for potential dangers, possible escape routes.

In the few seconds she took to glance around, she noticed that there were three doors and two large windows in the kitchen, so five potential points of entry. Her eyes came back to rest on the man in front of her who was lightly smiling as he watched her. Something told her that he was well aware of exactly what she was thinking and doing, and she flushed slightly at being so predictable but refused to feel abashed at being caught doing precisely what she was trained to do.

Steeling herself for any possible confrontation, she allowed her eyes to linger on Sirius Black as she looked at him properly for the first time. He wasn't an overly tall man, but something in his bearing made him seem a little taller than he was; something about the way he held himself projected composure and self-assurance. He was well-built but not bulky, and he had possibly the most handsome face Ginny had ever seen.

As in really, classically handsome. She was a little lost for words right then. According to her notes, Sirius Black was forty-three years old, but she wouldn't have put him a day past thirty. His hair was extremely dark - almost black - and without a hint of grey, and his face was unlined but for laughter creases around his eyes and mouth that only served to make him seem more appealing.

He was smiling at her as she looked him over, those piercing silvery eyes trained on her with a hint of amusement sparking in them. Recovering herself slightly and realising that she had yet to say a word, she stepped forward and offered him her hand.

'Sirius Black I presume? I'm Auror Weasley; and apparently you were expecting someone else.'

His eyebrows rose, and his smile creased further across his face at her words. 'Vance only told me he was sending an auror over, and I have to say the word conjures up a certain image that you don't exactly fit into. Forgive me, but you rather took me by surprise.'

'I see.' Ginny released his hand and nodded. 'Let me guess: you were expecting a six foot bloke with a shaven head and hams for hands?'

Sirius nodded his head slightly as he considered her words. 'Not far off, Auror Weasley, not far off at all. Do I get a first name? "Auror Weasley" is a mouthful, and I've never been much for formalities.'

She hesitated for just a second. 'It's Ginny.'

'Ginny.' He repeated, his lips curving up at the corners as he unleashed a full smile at her for the first time. 'It's nice. It suits you.'

'Thank you.' She answered quietly, her eyes beginning to dart around the room again. It really was far too big for one person she thought. She glanced back at the dark-haired man who was still watching her thoughtfully. 'Does Mr Potter live here alone Mr Black?'

'Sirius.' He corrected. 'And yes, he does.'

He took a moment to take in the quick flash of surprise that slid across her face, and decided to press the issue. 'You were under the impression that he was living with someone?'

'No.' Ginny responded slowly. 'No, all the information I have been given suggested he lived alone but this seems a rather large house for one person, and Mr Potter does not seem to be exactly forthcoming with details when it comes to his personal life, as I'm sure you're aware. I thought perhaps he chose not to divulge certain information.'

Sirius' lips twitched with amusement at her slightly caustic tone. Fiery temper under that cool façade, he'd put money on it. He'd always preferred the company of temperamental women. 'Well, he does like his space - doesn't do well with being cooped up - but he chose the house more for the location that anything else. And he can be a little tight-lipped, that's true, but I'm sure you can appreciate that is a natural side-effect of his life up to this point; and I have to say, I have always encouraged a certain reticence. For someone like Harry, it isn't exactly wise to give too much away.'

'I can understand that, but the Ministry needs good information if it is to offer him adequate protection; we don't want to overlook things.'

Sirius nodded as he pulled a chair out from under the table and gestured for her to sit; he slid into the chair opposite her and summoned two glasses and a jug of juice with two quick flicks of his wand. 'Well, he's supposedly upstairs resting, though I highly doubt he's actually abiding by medical advice up there. I can probably answer any questions you might have, Ginny, then I'll go and round him up so you can deliver your terms; or however you aurors express it.'

'Slightly less aggressively than that.' She replied mildly and he shot her that grin again as he waved his hand in an impatient gesture for her to get on with it. She pulled her quill and parchment from the inside pocket of her cloak and scanned over her paperwork quickly before she looked up at him.

'I have most of the information I need already, I just need to clarify one or two details. For instance…exactly what protective enchantments are on the house?'

'Standard anti-apparition wards, protective rune stones at each compass point, muggle-repelling charms and a protego maxima. Oh, and it's under the fidelius.' He answered promptly, clasping his hands together as he rested them on the table in front of him. Ginny looked up sharply.

'Who's the secret keeper?'

'I am.' Sirius answered calmly. 'The page that Vance showed you with Harry's address on was written by me, and if you take a look at your files, you'll see that it is no longer there. We don't take chances with my godson Ginny.'

She pursed her lips as she looked at him, somewhat startled by the discovery of a surprisingly serious edge under his layers of charm and humour. She gave him an abrupt nod before scribbling a quick note on her parchment.

'Who can get into the house through the wards?' she asked, a frown furrowing her brow as she looked up again.

'Myself, Harry and an old family friend named Remus Lupin. Oh, and Dumbledore, though he almost never comes without invitation. Otherwise we never drop the wards, not for anyone.'

Ginny's quill worked over the paper quickly until her ears registered what she'd just heard and she jerked her head up, her eyebrows rising. 'I'm sorry, did you say _Dumbledore_?'

Sirius smiled widely, his eyes understanding. 'I did. I was referring to _Aberforth_ Dumbledore. He's a good friend of ours, comes by every now and then. I tend to forget that people still automatically think of Albus; it's been a long time now.'

Ginny blew out the breath she hadn't even realised she'd been holding and returned to scribbling on her sheet of parchment. 'A wizard like Albus Dumbledore isn't easily forgotten, even when they're dead.'

Sirius looked at her curiously for a moment, but when it was obvious that no more was forthcoming he continued to speak.

'Other than us, everyone else must floo in, and generally we keep the floo closed and open it by appointment, and only to certain approved places; Harry doesn't exactly encourage visitors. If you're assigned here, we can have your home floo connected in; I'll get Vance to see to it, I have to drop in on him anyway. The Ministry floo you came through was connected just for the afternoon for you.'

'Okay.' She dropped her quill, rolled up her parchment and shoved them both back in her pocket. 'I'm going to tell you exactly what I said to Vance. I think Mr Potter is as safe as he can possibly be at home, though I will make an inspection of the house and grounds to see if anything catches my eye. I think if he's going to be at risk, it will be when he's out, whether he's on his way to the Quidditch ground, or at the Ministry for a Wizengamot meeting, or just going shopping.'

She paused for breath and leaned across the table towards Sirius, her eyes earnest. 'Unless he wants to become a _complete_ recluse until we can track down and catch those threatening him - and frankly, that would be easier - my orders are to go with him pretty much everywhere and watch for potential threats. Is there anything else I need to know to be able to do that effectively?'

Sirius leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest; his eyes sharp and thoughtful as they rested on her. She felt the urge to squirm under the scrutiny, but forced herself to remain still and to hold his eye contact. 'Harry.' He said after a moment's thought.

Ginny's eyebrows rose. 'Excuse me?'

'His name is Harry. He hates to be called Mr Potter; reminds him of everyone sucking up to him at the Wizengamot and at his games. And no, there's nothing else I can tell you that would help you with this.'

He rose from his seat and tucked his chair back under the table neatly. 'I think it's time you were introduced to him.'

He headed for the door furthest on the left and disappeared up a dim hallway, leaving the door open behind him and a rather confused Ginny sitting alone at the kitchen table.

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Harry Potter was stretched out on his bed, his hands folded behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. He was barefoot and bare-chested, his glasses hung crookedly on his face and his hair was messy even by his own, rather low, standards. His ribs ached and he hadn't had a decent night's sleep in four days thanks to the recurring headaches that were a residual side effect of his recent head injury, and it would be fair to say he wasn't in the best of moods.

There was a knock at his door, and Harry rolled his eyes, wondering why his godfather bothered to knock when he was going to come in whether Harry responded or not. Sure enough the door opened and Sirius entered the room, closing the door firmly behind him and coming to stand alongside the bed with his arms folded.

'Still sulking?' His voice was completely neutral, with no trace of either humour or condemnation.

'I'm not sulking, I'm brooding. There's a subtle but important difference.' Harry's eyes never left the slight crack in the ceiling that he had fixed them on.

Sirius sighed and turned his eyes heavenward. 'Agrippa have mercy, anyone would think you were still a teenager.'

'I'm allowed to be annoyed Sirius.' Harry's voice held an edge of temper now. 'I just want people to stop offering me unsolicited advice and trying to control everything I do. I've waited a damn long time to be in charge of my own life.'

Sirius sighed. He couldn't help but sympathise a little; after all, he'd spent his entire childhood trying to prevent _his_ family from controlling every aspect of his life, but this was about keeping Harry safe, and that trumped all other concerns about personal freedom. He owed it to Prongs and Lily.

He focused his clear gaze back on Harry's face. 'Harry, all anyone is asking of you is to take some sensible precautions. That's not really a lot to ask is it? Indulge your godfather.'

'I don't mind sensible precautions.' Harry groused from his prone position. 'I_ take_ sensible precautions already. What I _don't _want is some hulking great humourless auror wandering around behind me all hours of the day and night, intruding into my privacy and generally being a nuisance!'

Sirius raised his eyes to the ceiling in apparent mock despair, but it was at least partially to hide the grin that spread across his face when he thought of the stroppy redhead - hulking great humourless auror indeed - downstairs. He wondered how much like his father Harry really was…

'Well,' he said finally, carefully schooling his expression back into a neutral one as he lowered his face so he could fix his eyes on the side of Harry's head. 'On that subject, your newly assigned auror is downstairs waiting to meet you.'

Harry's entire body stiffened. 'Well you can tell them to bugger off.'

'Nope.' Sirius made his way back over to the door and paused with his hand on the handle. 'Haven't you just been telling me that you want to handle your own life? Seems to me this would be a good place to start. Besides, you did fine telling all the others to bugger off all on your own.'

Harry scowled. 'Yeah, but now I'm sick of repeating myself.'

Sirius snorted. 'Welcome to adulthood. It stinks, but you're stuck with it.' He pulled open the door handle and stepped through, pausing briefly to poke his head back in. 'And no hitting.'

He was gone before Harry could respond.

He lay there for a few more moments, still unmoving and wondering if today's annoying bloke would just leave of his own accord if he left them down there long enough. His scowl deepened. That was never going to happen. He knew aurors, and once they were assigned you might as well have nailed them to the floor. He wouldn't leave until Harry made him; at least he could be confident in his ability to _make_ them leave, since he'd managed to drive four away so far.

He sighed and rolled onto his left side to get slowly out of bed. He'd never admit it to Sirius, but he needn't worry about Harry hitting the bloke; his ribs were still extremely painful and were hampering his movements terribly. He was in no condition to fight, either physically or magically, and more importantly he was in no condition to fly either. That contributed to his bad mood more than anything else actually; being cooped up inside, unable to exercise was hell for someone as active as he was.

He reached for a shirt and his groping fingers found the pale blue one he'd started the day wearing before he'd flung himself back on the bed in a temper; he pulled it on, wincing at every pull on his sore ribs as he moved, but only bothered to button it most of the way up. He rolled the sleeves up to the elbows, then looked down at his bare feet. With a shrug, he decided that the situation didn't require shoes, and he made his way out of the bedroom door and down the landing to the staircase.

Every step jolted, and he found his bad temper increasing exponentially each time an arc of pain shot through either his ribs or head. Reaching the bottom of the staircase, he glanced both ways, trying to decide where the auror was likely to be waiting. Had Sirius said? He didn't think so.

After a moment's deliberation, he headed towards the kitchen, on the grounds that they would have had to come through the floo there and Sirius may or may not have led them through to the sitting room.

As he approached the kitchen , he noted that the door was open and he caught sight of a flash of navy blue auror robes on a figure sitting at the kitchen table. He paused for a second to straighten himself up, then he strode into the kitchen, fully prepared to argue the toss with yet_ another_ of Vance's human limpets.

What he was not prepared for, was for the limpet to be a _her_.

Or for her to look like that.

The girl sitting at his kitchen table, poring over some parchments – and she was very definitely a _girl_, she had to be younger than him – was very petite and _extremely _pretty. She had long red hair that had been pulled back into a messy bun, a smattering of light freckles across her nose and cheeks, and when she looked up at the sound of his footsteps, he noticed she had dark brown eyes that reflected just a hint of gold under the bright kitchen lights.

Her face flickered with a very brief smile as she rose to greet him, before falling back into her usual professional visage. 'Harry Potter.'

He swallowed hard. 'Yes.'

She stretched out a hand as she stepped towards him. 'I'm Auror Weasley. Ginny Weasley.'

He took her offered hand and shook it very gently, trying hard to pay no attention to the surprising softness of her skin. He released her quickly and took one step back towards the door. He chose his next words carefully, wanting very much to avoid offending her but still wanting her to leave as quickly as possible.

'I know you've been assigned here Miss Weasley, and I'm sorry to have wasted your time, but I neither need nor want Ministry protection; so I suppose you can return to the auror office now.'

He folded his arms across his chest and waited for a response, more intrigued than he would have liked to admit to hear her reply. On the one hand it would be a relief for one of the unwanted aurors to just leave him alone without him having to tear a strip off first – and he really didn't want to have a blazing row with a woman; Sirius would have forty fits - but on the other, he found himself thinking that he would be vaguely disappointed if she was that easily dissuaded.

He saw a brief flicker of something like confusion cross her face, but it was gone so quickly he could almost convince himself that he had imagined it; it was replaced by an expression of unmistakable obstinacy. She drew herself up and set her shoulders; Harry suppressed a slight snort at the sight of the girl, who had to be four inches shorter than him at least, attempting to make her presence felt.

'I'm afraid I can't do that Mr Potter. I was assigned here by Head Auror Vance, and he is the only person with the authority to remove me from this placement. I understand that you are less than pleased with the fact that your employers have decided to insist upon your acceptance of Ministry protection, but that doesn't change the fact that I have been assigned to protect you, and I intend to do my job.'

Her chin rose defiantly as she finished her sentence, and he couldn't help but admire her spirit. Under different circumstances, he might even have truly appreciated it.

'Look Miss Weasley…' he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. 'I appreciate your dedication to your job; really, it's very admirable. But I have no intention of having my life and activities curtailed by _anyone_, regardless of the opinions of my employers, and least of all by someone that I have never before laid eyes on. So again; thank you for your time, but your presence here is not necessary.'

Her eyebrows rose incredulously, and she returned to her chair at the kitchen table, leaning her elbows on the table top and resting her chin on her clasped hands as she looked directly at him without flinching. 'Unfortunately for you Mr Potter, that isn't your decision to make is it?'

He felt his temper rise, and he bit back the scathing retort that wanted to make its way out of his mouth. Sirius had raised him to treat women with the utmost respect, and he had no intention of lapsing now, no matter how difficult this red-headed harpy was being.

'I would say it is.' He spoke slowly and carefully, thinking about every word before he chose it. 'Since I am the one who is going to be required to submit to having a babysitter for the foreseeable future.'

Her eyes blazed, and he knew instantly that he had said the wrong thing. She pushed her chair back from the table and rose slowly to her feet, her hands hanging loosely at her side, her every movement careful and considered; her jaw clenched and he could see her hands fist in her robes as her temper rose and she fought to retain control of it. Harry felt a sudden flare of totally inappropriate attraction and quashed it quickly. Bloody Merlin, that was the _last_ thing on his mind.

'I am not a babysitter.' Her words were quiet, almost dangerously so. 'How dare you say something so disrespectful? My colleagues and I risk our lives – some_ die_ - to protect others. How dare you stand there and belittle what we do?'

Harry felt his own, rather impressive, temper stirring still further at the allegation and he quickly stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets so she couldn't see his fingers curl up into fists that shook with his anger. Her comments may have infuriated him, but he didn't want to scare her.

Still, he was both angry and insulted. Who knew better than him the risks aurors took? How many had he watched die or be injured? More than Ginny Weasley he was sure; she was too young to have been involved in the war – hell, _he_ ought to have been too young to be involved in the war - and couldn't have been all that long out of the Academy.

'I was neither belittling nor disrespecting you or your colleagues.' He managed to keep his voice quiet, but his tone was hard and uncompromising and he noted a slight paling of her complexion, though he could not say if it was the result of fear, or simply an indication of a reduction in her temper. 'I understand what it means to be an auror far better than most, and probably better than you. You may not have seen the retaliation Voldemort visited upon the auror department, but I did. I cannot count how many aurors fought and died alongside me; I would never insult them. If anything, the Ministry is insulting both their memory and your talents by assigning aurors to such trivial duties as guarding one unimportant Quidditch player.'

Ginny's jaw set in a defiant expression, and she drew in a deep breath in an obvious attempt to prevent herself from voicing an opinion she'd regret later. Harry was almost disappointed; she evidently had a response, and he was rather intrigued to hear it, but she stifled her argument and spoke calmly, if in a rather prim, stilted tone. 'It appears we are rather misunderstanding each other, so perhaps this discussion is best continued at another time.'

Harry felt his fists begin to relax in his pockets as it became apparent that she was done with their argument, but his heart was still pounding at the implication that there would be 'another time' to continue their discussion; she obviously intended to carry on with her assignment. She was showing more spine in standing up to him than any of the older, more experienced aurors Vance had previously sent him, and he'd be damned if that didn't fascinate him just a little. He cocked his head to one side slightly and narrowed his eyes at her as he focused on listening to her as she continued to speak.

'My earlier point stands Mr Potter; it isn't up to you to decide what is trivial or not. I work for the Ministry and I go where they assign me; they have decided to assign me to you, whether either of us likes it or not. My job is to keep you alive, and that's for the good of everyone. Can you imagine the fallout if the public was aware that the Death Eaters had actually managed to injure you? Can you imagine the fear that would conjure? If they can get to you, how safe is anyone else? Now imagine how much worse all that would be if they actually succeeded in killing you .We don't want to return to those days when people looked for the Dark Mark above their house and kept their children away from school out of fear. Voldemort may be gone, but his supporters are as rabid as ever.'

She turned to the table and picked up her parchment and quill, tucking them back into the pockets of her cloak before turning back to face him. 'My assignment actually starts tomorrow, I just came by today to introduce myself. So I will be back at 8:30 tomorrow morning and we can discuss what's needed, and how we can avoid _inconveniencing _you.'

Harry hadn't moved; he stood rooted to the spot, his eyes fixed on her appraisingly. There was a definite hint of sarcasm in her words, and that piqued his interest. He couldn't deny the faint stirring of admiration her show of spirit had caused and he also couldn't help but appreciate the colour that the bout of temper had put in her cheeks. Her words had struck a chord too; hadn't he released those press statements purely to encourage peoplenot to be afraid? He knew she had a point; he was a visible figurehead of the anti-blood purity movement and as such any damage to him was a blow to the cause, but still. He didn't need protection, and accepting it would merely make him appear to be taking the threats more seriously than he was. The last thing he needed was to give the Death Eaters that kind of publicity.

So, no matter how earnest Miss Weasley was in her belief that she ought to be protecting him and keeping him safe for the greater good, he couldn't accept that. So she'd need slightly more provocation than the previous aurors to leave him alone; didn't matter, he'd work on it. The girl had to go. No matter how…interesting she was. He inclined his head to her as she stepped towards his fireplace, a faint smile playing on the corners of his lips.

'Goodbye Miss Weasley.'

She turned to look at him and her gaze narrowed suspiciously. '8:30.' She repeated. She stepped into the fireplace and faced him, her hand poised to drop the powder but held still in mid-air. 'And Mr Potter?' She waited for him to cock an eyebrow in acknowledgement before she continued. 'Don't even _consider _not letting me through the floo tomorrow; I'll just fetch Sirius to let me in and I suspect that would end with us _both _shouting at you .'

She let the powder fall and was gone in a burst of green flame. Harry let out a long slow breath. Well, that had been…different, to say the least.

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**A/N: Thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far, reading them really does help keep me motivated. And every time my inbox pops up a notification that someone has followed or favourited I smile, so thanks for that too.  
**

**I'm making much slower progress on updating all my stories than normal at the moment, so apologies for that, but I should have more free time again from next week, so hopefully will be back to posting weekly updates. **

**Leave me a review and I'll love you forever x**


	4. Seeing Similarities

**A/N: Sorry for the wait on this one guys - this chapter was horrible to write. I'm not sure why, it just gave me real trouble. I've rewritten it twice, and I have no more patience for it, so I'm sorry if it sucks. **

**Updates may continue to be a little sporadic since I've started to write something for Jily Pirate Fest and an outtake from Turning Tables on top of my three WIP fics, but I will do my best. **

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Ginny adjusted her clothes one final time and stepped in front of her mirror. She knew it was ridiculous to worry about what she was wearing to work, since absolutely nobody would see her except for Harry Potter, but yesterdays' clash with him had rattled her a little more than she would admit to herself; she wanted to look professional and in control, but she also didn't want to have to wear her damn auror robes all day while she wasn't in the office. One of the best things about fieldwork, in her opinion, was that it didn't require uniform.

She adjusted the collar of her lightweight cream blouse and nodded at her reflection. She'd really been inclined to wear muggle jeans, but had decided that not only was it not professional enough in appearance, but also that she wasn't sure how Harry would react to her wearing muggle-style clothing. She'd ended up in simple dark grey slacks. She caught her hair up in a ponytail and grabbed her field kit, heading downstairs to the kitchen.

'Good morning dear.' Molly Weasley was sitting at the table darning socks, and at the sound of Ginny's footsteps she looked up from her sewing with a smile. 'You're a little later than usual. I saved you some breakfast.'

'Thanks mum.' Ginny poured herself a small glass of juice, sipping it as she turned to face her mother. 'No-one else here?'

'Your father went to work very early, and Ron went to see Hermione before he opens the shop today.' Her mother answered quietly. 'It's still strange to have a quiet house.'

'Well, you've got a few more years of me and Ron yet I suspect.' Ginny refilled her glass and picked up her plate from the counter before joining her mother at the table.

'I hope so.' Molly smiled fondly at her. 'No robes today?'

She hadn't said anything about her new assignment yesterday; she hadn't fancied the awkward questions she couldn't answer anyway, and the strange confrontation she'd had with Harry was too disconcerting to even consider discussing it.

Ginny shook her head, deciding to keep it simple. 'New assignment. Protection detail.'

'Really?' Her mother waited expectantly, and Ginny laughed at her expression. 'Sorry mum. Can't say who.'

'Oh.' She sounded disappointed, but she immediately let the subject drop; when your husband and two of your children worked for the Ministry you probably got used to not knowing everything that was going on.

Ginny finished her breakfast and glanced at the clock. 8:15. She'd give it a few minutes, so he couldn't complain about her being too early.

She was still reeling a little from yesterday's confrontation. She'd stood her ground and refused to be intimidated, but it was an extremely bizarre situation to find yourself in, arguing vociferously with your favourite Quidditch player. She didn't imagine many people would picture meeting their sporting heroes like that. Truth be told, she'd be one step away from ripping his poster off her bedroom wall and tearing it into miniscule pieces when she'd eventually made it home; she'd been ready to do it and brandishing her wand in its direction, but when she looked at his face in the image, her anger drained.

The thing was, she could see his point. From what she'd read of his file, he'd lived a very controlled, sheltered life for his entire childhood and adolescence; he'd carried the weight of the world on his shoulders for almost two decades, had rid the wizarding world of possibly the most significant threat it had ever faced, and now all he wanted was to be left in peace to organise his own affairs. Who couldn't sympathise with that?

As the youngest of a large family, and the only girl, she probably understood better than most; she'd spent her whole life being dictated to and having her opinions dismissed, and she'd hated it even as she recognised that her family did it with the best of intentions. The real difference, she supposed, was that she could grow up and, if she chose to, disregard her family; Harry's problem was that he couldn't escape being Harry Potter.

He'd never escape the public eye, probably not even if he went abroad; every choice he made for the rest of his life would be scrutinised, and he'd probably never be free to think only of himself. Merlin help her, she couldn't help but feel a little sad for him.

So she'd left the poster on her wall, had looked at it for a long time before she went to sleep, trying to reconcile the man in the poster with the man she'd met.

8:20. This was pointless. She was ready to go, and if Harry was going to be pissy about her being early, then he was going to be pissy. She'd deal with it.

She stood and took her bowl to the sink, ready to wash it out.

'Leave it dear.' Her mother's voice was placid. 'You get off to work.'

Ginny managed a smile for her. 'Thanks mum. I'm going through the floo in the living room, okay?'

Without waiting for a response she headed to the fireplace and stepped in with a handful of floo powder. She whispered her destination and was gone.

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Harry washed his breakfast dishes by hand; he liked to do chores the muggle way when he needed to think about things. It was something he'd learned from Sirius, who said he'd picked it up from Harry's mother - apparently it was what she used to do when she was mad at his dad and needed some time to cool off and think about things. He liked that little connection to her; they were all he had of his parents really, those second-hand memories.

The focus of his rather convoluted thoughts that morning was Auror Ginny Weasley. His mind had strayed to her a few times after she'd left yesterday afternoon, and that puzzled him; it was rare for him to give people – other than a very specific few – more than a passing thought.

She seemed more than a little different to the last few aurors Vance had sent over, besides in the very obvious way; they had folded almost instantly as soon as he'd started shouting at them, but not her…Ginny Weasley had straightened her spine and had politely but firmly stood her ground. He had to admire her for it, but dammit, it gave him a serious problem.

He didn't want her around. He didn't want anyone to have control of his life, least of all someone as utterly confusing and entirely vexing as she promised to be. But he couldn't yell at her, couldn't bring himself to try and intimidate her into running away from him; for a start, he was fairly sure it wouldn't work. He may only have met her once, but it was enough to know that she wasn't the sort to back down easily, and he'd hazard a guess that the more he tried to push her around, the more she'd resist, even if just to be contrary.

And, if he was honest, he didn't _want_ to be horrible to her; he'd feel like the worst kind of bully. She may have been an auror, but she was also a petite, pretty young girl, and he really doubted he'd have the conviction to stand there and be hostile to her when those extremely appealing brown eyes were staring up at him.

He slammed his clean glass down on the draining board with frustration. "Appealing brown eyes?" What the hell was that? Where were these thoughts even coming from?

'Wretched girl.' He growled the words to himself and grabbed a teacloth to wipe his hands as he walked over to the fireplace. He dropped a pinch of powder in, whispering something under his breath – he may have lived alone, but when you've lived with paranoia from birth it never really disappeared - and the green flames rose up as knelt down, staring into the flames until he could see another room beyond them.

'Sirius. Stop ignoring me and answer the damn floo!' He should have spoken to him last night, but his mind had been spinning and it hadn't occurred to him.

'Something on your mind Harry?' His godfather's smiling face appeared in front of him.

'Oh, I'm sure you're well aware of exactly what's on my mind Sirius! A little warning would have been nice!' Harry snapped, his temper coming to the fore, but Sirius' grin only widened.

'Did I, or did I not tell you that an auror was waiting for you downstairs?' he asked calmly, lowering himself to his knees on his fireside rug so that he was level with Harry.

'Yes.' Said Harry, exasperation lacing his words. 'But you _didn't_ tell me it was…'

'A woman?' Interrupted Sirius with a laugh. 'And a very pretty one at that.'

'Oh, that was a woman?' Harry answered darkly. 'Because** I **thought it resembled a Hungarian Horntail in temperament! What the hell is Vance trying to do to me?'

'Get you to behave yourself I imagine.' Sirius answered. 'Give the poor bloke a break, he's copping flak from all sides on this; the Minister and the team are pushing him to give you a protection detail, you're refusing and practically posting his aurors back to him in pieces…'

'I was perfectly polite to every one of the ham-fisted apes he sent to follow me around like some kind of entourage! After some discussion, they all agreed I didn't need them.'

Sirius raised an admonitory eyebrow. 'I heard the little _discussion_ you had with that last one, and I distinctly remember you threatening certain parts of his anatomy with some very nasty hexes if he didn't, and I quote "haul himself back off to whatever gorilla house he crawled out of". You're so much like your dad; I thought I'd managed to remove tactlessness as a family trait, but apparently not.'

'Okay.' Harry sulked. 'I admit that the last bloke tried my temper a little, but I don't see why that's inspired Vance to send me some little slip of a girl. I mean, she looks altogether too bloody breakable for this kind of detail anyway; if I'm so much bloody danger that I need protection, then what's he thinking of, sending a little bit like her?'

'Did you scare her off?' Asked Sirius as he moved away from the fire a little, calmly reaching for something on his bookcase.

'What?' asked Harry, momentarily confused by the apparent swerve the conversation had taken.

'Little Miss Ginny Weasley.' Sirius clarified. 'Did you manage to drive her away?'

'No.' Harry folded his arms and glared. 'Do you know how difficult it is to be mean to a girl that delicate-looking, no matter how bloody temperamental she is? I barely started to upset her and I felt like a cad. She's coming back by 8:30 this morning.'

Sirius glanced up at his clock. '8:20. You've got ten minutes then.'

'For what?' Huffed Harry, glaring at his still smiling godfather.

'To get started on reading this.' Sirius passed him a book through the floo before standing up, and Harry flipped it over to read the title:

**_Twelve Fail-Safe Ways To Charm Witches_**

He looked up. 'What the hell Sirius?'

His godfather's face momentarily reappeared in the fireplace. 'You catch more flies with honey my boy.' He winked, and was gone, leaving Harry alone and confused.

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Ginny found the arrival in Harry's kitchen fireplace to be much easier second time around; she only stumbled very slightly and she wasn't at all disoriented. Perhaps it was because she was familiar with the surroundings now. The morning sun streamed in through the large windows - the kitchen must be east-facing – and lit the room with a cheerful glow.

She stepped out of the floo and glanced around quickly, starting ever so slightly when she noticed Harry standing at one of the counters, his back to her. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and she suddenly felt silly and over-dressed; of course Harry bloody Potter wouldn't have been offended by her wearing muggle clothes. The man was in bloody danger because of his avid defence of muggles and muggle-borns, of course he wasn't going to be prejudiced.

'Good morning.' His voice was neutral and calm. 'Would you like some tea?'

'Thank you. I'd appreciate it.' She was aware that there was a hint of wariness in her tone, but she couldn't quite help it. He'd been furious with her yesterday, she'd recognised that much - though he'd reined his temper in well - and she couldn't quite reconcile the Harry of yesterday with the calm figure she was encountering this morning.

He turned and smiled at her. 'You're welcome. Milk and sugar?'

She managed a faltering smile in return. 'Just milk please.'

He turned back to the counter and finished preparing two mugs before he turned and offered one to her; she took a small sip, then stood awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen, suddenly unsure of how to act around him.

Harry sipped from his own mug and watched her with furrowed brow for a moment. 'I owe you an apology I believe.'

Ginny's eyebrows rose, but she remained silent and Harry took that as tacit approval for him to continue.

'I shouldn't have been so…dismissive of you. I was annoyed, but I wasn't annoyed with you, and it was unfair of me to vent my frustrations on you.'

She remained unresponsive for a long moment as she stood with both hands wrapped around her mug, and he began to feel a little agitated as he waited for her to acknowledge him, wondering if she expected something more than that in an apology.

'Apology accepted.' Her voice was so quiet he almost thought he hadn't heard it, but she was looking directly at him and he couldn't fail to notice the tension drain from her posture; she'd obviously anticipated another tongue-lashing from him this morning, and the thought made a little ball of guilt settle in his stomach.

'I should say sorry too.' She continued, to his absolute surprise. 'I shouldn't have insinuated that you lacked respect for aurors; I know you fought alongside them.'

Harry nodded, his eyes distant for a moment; there were some memories that time could never dull, and they had a habit of creeping up on you at times like these, when you were feeling introspective and unprepared.

He leaned back against the counter and observed her a little more closely. She looked a little fatigued, like she hadn't slept well, and he felt that tug of guilt again at the thought that he might have been the cause of that.

'I still think this assignment is a waste of your time, and mine.' He said calmly. 'I don't need protection,I am perfectly able to look after myself.'

'Says the man with a broken leg, three cracked ribs and a fractured skull.' Ginny responded calmly, and he cocked his head to one side as he looked at her with a strange expression; in other circumstances she might have said it was almost admiring, but her instincts had to be wrong here.

'Says the man who was ambushed by four wanted murderers and escaped with _only_ a broken leg, three cracked ribs and a fractured skull.' He responded cockily, raising his cup of tea in salute to her. This was strangely…_fun_, this back and forth banter; it was like talking to Sirius, but with an edge that conversing with his godfather never had.

'Hmm. Amusing though it is to debate the point with you, it's irrelevant. Your team are insisting the Ministry provide you with protection.' Ginny smiled at him over her cup. 'Perhaps you should try shouting at _them_.'

'Already did.' Said Harry glumly. 'And I can't make them understand my point.'

'What exactly is your point?' Challenged Ginny, face set in an expression of genuine curiosity.

'Twofold really.' Answered Harry promptly. 'First of all, I am an adult, and I do not _need _someone to follow me around all day - no offence - checking that I'm not in danger; I didn't survive this far by being naïve or unable to look after myself. And secondly, and most importantly, accepting protection makes it look as though I'm actually worried by the threats when I'm not. As you pointed out yesterday, I am a public figure, and if I give people the idea that there is something to be scared of, then they are going to panic; I don't need to be responsible for that.'

Ginny faltered a little at that. The sheer weight of that kind of responsibility had to be crushing; to have to consider every little thing in minute detail before you did it, to second guess everything you ever did, knowing that it would be tried in the court of public opinion.

Lots of people wouldn't care, she knew. They would do as they pleased and ignore the impact they had on society at large; Harry apparently had too much of a conscience for that. Feeling warmer towards him, she slid onto one of the kitchen chairs and looked up into his eyes.

'Look, I know you don't want this. Truth be told, it's not likely to be much fun for me either if you're going to fight me every step of the way. We can find a way to make it less arduous for the both of us.'

Curiosity sparked in his eyes. 'What were you thinking?'

'Well, you don't want anyone to know you've accepted protection; that's fine by the Ministry, your file is top-secret anyway. I can't even tell my family who I'm protecting. No-one's saying that you have to publicise the fact that you have an auror assigned, I can be…inconspicuous. We'll tell them I'm your PA or something, and Vance will keep it out of the media; it's in his interest as well.'

He looked at her cautiously. 'Go on.'

'And as for having a _babysitter_…' she aimed a withering look at him, and he actually managed to look sheepish, 'I have no interest in dictating what you do, or in stopping you from doing anything; I just need to make sure you're as safe as possible. I don't need to coddle you to do that. Just co-operate with me and there'll probably be no need for you to make any real changes.

Harry looked at her for a long moment, then drained his cup and stood up. 'I should show you around the house. If you're going to be spending time here.'

He offered her his hand, and though she thought better of it, she slipped her hand into his and allowed him to help her rise from her seat. He looked round quickly, seemingly unsure of where to start, but he kept hold of her hand. 'Right. Kitchen you know; lounge is along here…' and he tugged her out the door, and along the hallway.

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'Why Cornwall?' Ginny asked as they walked through the garden. They were far and anyway the best thing about Harry's house in her opinion, though she had felt a passing appreciation for his enormous bathroom. They were obviously landscaped, but were beautifully informal; Harry had told her that when he bought the house he had someone design gardens that would look nice but need next to no maintenance. Whatever ridiculous price he had paid had been worth it.

'Sorry?' Harry turned his head to face her, his eyes enquiring.

'I was just wondering why you picked Cornwall. I would have thought you'd have lived in London or somewhere…I don't know, fashionable. Trendy. Did you move here because of the Falcons?'

Harry shrugged. 'No, I bought this house long before I signed to them; quite soon after the Battle actually. I wanted privacy and a nice house, and I knew I didn't want to live in a city; I like open space and clean air. And Cornwall…well, it's beautiful.'

'It is.' Ginny responded quietly, her eyes drifting to the sea, just visible on the horizon. 'It's lovely.'

'What about you?' he asked curiously, suddenly realising that she'd read an entire file on him, and he knew nothing about her other than her name and that she was an auror. Of course, he could find out about her quite easily, but it seemed…un-chivalrous…to snoop on her when he could just ask. 'Where do you live?'

'Oh, er Devon.' She answered, suddenly flustered about being asked a question about herself. For some reason her brain had chosen this exact moment to remind her that she was talking to _Harry Potter_, saviour of the wizarding world and Quidditch superstar. _Now _she decided to get starstruck? Really?

He smiled at her, not oblivious to the fact that she seemed a little uncomfortable talking about herself. 'Not so far away then.'

'No.' She managed. 'Not really. Although realistically, everywhere's only a short floo away.'

'True enough.' He paused for a moment, unsure whether to continue, then spoke again. 'Do you like it?'

'I'm sorry?' Ginny knew she sounded rattled, but she _was _a little; she didn't like to talk about herself under normal circumstances, and she certainly wasn't sure she liked talking about herself with a client.

'Do you like where you live?' He clarified.

She didn't even have to think about the answer. 'Yes. It was a wonderful place to grow up; apple orchards and open fields. Lots of space for Quidditch.'

A smile spread across his face at the thought. 'You play Quidditch?'

She gave him a sideways look. 'Not like _you_ play Quidditch, hotshot.'

He snorted a laugh, and though she felt her face flush a little, she felt encouraged to continue. 'I was on the Gryffindor team at Hogwarts, was even Captain for my final year. I play chaser, though I've been known to play seeker when I've a need to.'

Harry nodded thoughtfully. 'Difficult position, chaser. I'm no good at it.'

She raised an eyebrow at him. 'I'd have thought you'd be good at anything involving Quidditch.'

He grinned. 'I can catch a snitch and I can keep decently enough, but I'm not much of a beater or a chaser. I think it's the teamwork aspect; I've been told that I don't play well with others.'

'You don't say.' Ginny gave him a mocking look, and he laughed out loud this time.

'I _said_ I was sorry about that.' He nudged her gently with his elbow. 'You're a grudge holder Weasley.'

'With six older brothers, you have to be.' She answered absentmindedly.

'Six?' His eyebrows shot up. 'Bloody hell.'

'That about covers it.' Said Ginny. 'I think that's why I sympathise with your situation; I know exactly what it's like to be told what to do all the time, and by people with the best intentions, so you can't even be really mad at them.'

He was quiet for a moment before he responded. 'I know what you mean. But I think I'd have liked siblings – you know, if things had been different. Of course they'd have been _younger,_ so maybe that's what makes a difference.'

He looked so damn sad that Ginny couldn't resist reaching out to touch his arm gently. 'Your life has just been messed up by all this for so long hasn't it?'

Harry shrugged, but it was forced and she could see the tenseness in his posture. 'Someone once told me that you play the hand you're dealt or you fold. I never was much for folding.'

'Who told you that?' She asked, genuinely curious. It seemed a rather harsh thing to say to someone in Harry's position.

'Mad-eye Moody.'

'Ah.' That explained that; Moody was known for his blunt, hard-hearted approach to things. 'He would take that approach.'

'I don't think he knows another way.' Harry said quietly.

'Well I do.' Said Ginny. 'Let's go back in and work out how we're going to do this. Indulge everyone for a bit longer and let me do my assignment Harry; it's only until we catch the ringleaders of this little Death Eater resurgence. I won't tell you what to do; you can do whatever the hell you want. Just let me help you be safe while you're doing it.'

Harry sighed and stuffed his hands in his pockets. 'One week. We try it for one week.'

Ginny gave him an arch look. 'We'll see Potter.'

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**A/N: Thanks for reading everyone, let me know what you think. **


	5. Almost Routine

**A/N: A big thank you as always to everyone who reviewed, followed or whatever - seeing those notifications in my inbox always makes me happy. And a little more motivated to write, so I guess that works out for all of us right?**

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Harry had to admit, it had been much easier than he'd expected, having an auror around all the time; he'd become accustomed to it over the last few days. It wasn't as big a nuisance as he'd thought it would be. Of course he couldn't be sure how much of a difference it made that the auror in question was Ginny.

They'd somehow managed to develop a routine of sorts, without ever actually having discussed it; she arrived at his house every morning by floo, no earlier than eight but never later than half past and she stayed until usually around eight or nine o'clock in the evening. Harry had tried to convince her that she needn't arrive so early, as he habitually didn't rise until later, but she wouldn't be dissuaded. So for the last four mornings he'd gotten up far earlier than he usually felt necessary in order to be awake when she arrived, to make sure she wasn't just wandering aimlessly around his house; she'd pointed out that he needn't feel obliged to do so, but he was just as stubborn as she was and neither was willing to give ground.

He had however, stopped bothering to make sure he was properly showered and dressed for when she arrived; at least that way he didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn to be ready in time. This was what had led them here, to him pressing a bag of ice wrapped in a tea towel to her head as he knelt in front of her.

He'd been sleepily making scrambled eggs on the stove, wearing just his pyjama bottoms, when she'd flooed in. He'd turned to smile at her, and she'd taken one look at his bare chest, slapped a hand over her eyes and promptly tripped on the hearthstone, sending her sprawling into the edge of the table.

Harry had reacted quickly, helping her up and guiding her to a chair before conjuring some ice to make a cold pack and pressing it firmly on the swiftly reddening swelling on her temple. She'd responded with some very inventive curses, some of which he thought might even make Sirius blush, and had attempted to slap his hands away. He'd countered her profanities with calm confidence, and used his free hand to hold her in her seat; she may have been quick with her hexes but he easily outmatched her in physical strength.

After a moment she'd given up squirming against his grip, presumably recognising a lost cause, and had simply closed her eyes against the pain and slumped down in the chair. And now here they were, her seated on a kitchen chair while he knelt at her feet and held the compress to her head.

'I could just use a healing charm you know.' She mumbled the words, and Harry's eyes darted quickly to meet hers, then focused back on the ice pack he was pressing onto her skin.

'I know, and**_I_**will use one in a minute. They're more effective if you take the worst of the swelling down first. Trust me; I'm an absolute professional at injuries. Let's have a look.'

He lifted the ice from her skin and winced at the sight, letting the smallest hiss escape through his teeth; he couldn't work out if it was actually that nasty a bump, or if it simply looked worse against the contrast of her pale skin. Either way, the large patch of red skin was slowly turning purple, and there was actually a small cut in the middle of it, presumably from where she'd made contact with the very corner of the table.

He pulled his wand out of the waistband of his pyjama bottoms and spoke a quick healing charm that she didn't recognise; the throbbing in her face instantly subsided and she felt like she could open her eyes without risking head-splitting agony.

The first thing she saw was Harry's concerned face hovering just below her own eye level, and now that she could focus on something other than the pain she felt the blush that was beginning to creep up her neck.

How could she have been so clumsy? She was an auror, she was trained to move inconspicuously, to be aware of her surroundings, and the sight of his bare chest had sent her crashing into a table? Mortifying didn't seem to be a strong enough word at this point.

And it was stupid to pretend to herself that the blush was caused purely by her embarrassment over her clumsiness. While she might never admit it to another living soul, she could at least admit to _herself_ that she felt hot all over at the sight of a shirtless Harry Potter kneeling in front of her, his concerned face within inches of her own. And that was without taking into consideration the fact that his Quidditch calloused hands were gently touching her face as he probed at her injuries.

'I'm fine.' She almost snapped the words as she batted his hands away and stood up, desperate to put a little space between them; she checked her reflection quickly in the large mirror above the fireplace and then moved towards the window and propped herself against the counter. 'Thanks.'

Harry rose slowly from his position on the floor. 'You're welcome.' He answered slowly and deliberately, seemingly confused by her sudden apparent annoyance with him, and she felt a twinge of guilt; it wasn't _his_ fault she was a hormonal mess after all.

'Really. Thanks. My healing charms aren't quite as good as yours apparently; I would never have been able to completely get rid of the swelling.' She thought she actually managed to sound properly grateful this time; putting some breathing space between them had definitely been a good idea.

He gave a one-shoulder shrug, his eyes still fixed concernedly on her; presumably he was confused by her mad behaviour and was probably worried that she had sustained some brain damage or something.

'Again; you're welcome. You should probably get checked for a concussion though.'

Yeah, he was definitely chalking her sudden mood swing up to the injury; all in all that was probably a good thing. She could hardly tell him that she didn't feel at all unwell now, she'd just had to move so that she could retain the willpower necessary to refrain from jumping him.

Dear Merlin.

The infuriating thing was, he was actually oblivious. She'd originally thought he was just being overly modest, but every day since she'd started her assignment he'd received fan letters, and every day he blushed and muttered something about fame being a powerful aphrodisiac. Apparently he was unable to comprehend the idea that he was attractive to women. And yes, the fame and the cachet of dating a Quidditch player, not to mention the money Harry had at his disposal were almost certainly motivating factors for plenty of the more rabid – not to mention worrying – marriage proposals he got, but what he didn't see was that even if you stripped those things away, plenty of women would still be attracted to the rangy build, the messy hair, the bright green eyes. He was an appealing package.

And why in the name of Agrippa was she still on this train of thought?

Mentally shaking herself she offered him and unconvincing smile. 'I'm an auror; we're trained to work through these things in the field. If I notice symptoms I'll go to the Ministry.' She smiled at him, and then immediately changed the subject. 'What are your plans for the day then?'

'Same as every other damn day this week. House arrest remember?' He was watching her carefully, his brow slightly furrowed as he spoke.

'It's _supposed _to be bed rest as I recall.' Said Ginny lightly. 'You aren't very good at following healer's orders are you?'

The corner of his lips twitched and rose into a sort of half grin. 'I'm not good at following _any _kind of orders.'

She felt her own lips twitch in response, but very firmly supressed the grin. He was not amusing. She, Ginny Weasley, did _not _find Harry Potter amusing.

He watched that brief flicker of amusement on her face and found himself irrationally annoyed at the way she shut it down before she could smile fully; he liked it when she smiled, which wasn't that often. The gold in her brown eyes lit up and her nose wrinkled in a rather adorable way.

And he needed either a cold shower or a swift blow to the head apparently.

'Well, these eggs are beyond help I think.' Harry vanished the burned mess from the pan and dropped it into the sink. 'I think I'll give up on breakfast and just grab a shower.'

'I, er, could make you something if you like?' Ginny offered tentatively. 'I was the one who made you burn them after all.'

His mouth lifted into a full smile this time. 'Don't worry about it; I'm not that hungry anymore anyway. I'm going to shower and then I'll probably write some letters. I'll be in the study if you need anything.'

'Uh, okay. I'll be in here, filling in paperwork.' Ginny answered, vaguely indicated the brown leather case that she had been carrying when she flooed in, lying forgotten on the floor near the hearth. Harry picked it up and set it on the table for her before retreating from the room and hurrying upstairs. Ginny touched a hand to her temple and sighed, then settled herself down at the table for another riveting hour or so of filling in Wizengamot forms.

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When Harry wandered into the kitchen at around ten thirty, both of them were feeling more composed about matters in general, and he found himself directing a relaxed smile at Ginny, whose head was resting on one hand as she flipped pages in a catalogue.

'Tea?' He asked without preamble as he began to heat water and hunt out mugs.

'Huh?' Ginny roused herself from her examination of the Spintwitches catalogue and found herself staring at Harry as he busied himself with mugs and sugar. He raised his eyebrows and indicated the mugs with a nod of his head. 'Oh, yes please. Thanks.' She responded, realising that she was actually incredibly thirsty, and that she no longer had any feelings of nausea at all; no concussion then. She was exceedingly grateful for that, because she did not relish reporting to Vance that she had managed to injure herself by crashing headfirst into a piece of Harry's furniture.

She returned to her examination of the catalogue, brow furrowing as she studied first the Flyte and Barker flying gloves, then the official Nimbus gloves; a thought struck her, and she straightened up in her seat. Why was she deliberating over which was the better pair of flying gloves when she was sitting in the kitchen of a flying expert?

'Which would you say are better, the Nimbus gloves or the Flyte and Barker gloves?'

Harry turned and blinked owlishly at her from behind his glasses. 'Excuse me?'

She huffed, but repeated the question, and he thought for a moment before he frowned at her. 'Better for what?'

She rolled her eyes at him. 'For re-potting mandrakes. For flying of course! I'm looking for a birthday present for my brother Charlie.'

Harry placed a mug of tea in front of her and sat down at the table. 'Well, does he play Quidditch?'

'No.' She answered quickly, then re-considered. 'Well, not much. Just the odd pick-up game now; he works with dragons in Romania, likes to fly to relax. He played at Hogwarts though, nearly made it to the England squad.'

A slow grin spread across Harry's face and he held up one finger. 'Charlie Weasley. Stocky bloke. His hair is a bit darker than yours, and he has a lot more freckles.'

Ginny looked startled, and he grinned a little wider. 'He was in the Order wasn't he? I met him once; we talked about Quidditch funnily enough.'

Ginny swallowed a sip of her tea. 'You met him _once _and you remember him?'

Harry shrugged. 'Sirius taught me to learn names and faces; it comes in handy. Funny how I never made the connection when I met you though. I'd go for the Flyte and Barker specials. The Nimbus gloves are very Quidditch orientated, lots of grip for handling a quaffle, snitch or a beater's bat, but the F&B ones are much better for general use all year round.'

'Thanks.' Ginny muttered, and she pulled the owl order form towards her and began to scribble down the details. He watched her carefully for a moment, then asked the first question that came to mind, just as a way of getting her talking, maybe getting her to look up at him so he could see those eyes again.

'So is he your oldest brother?'

'Hmm? Oh, no. Second oldest. It's Bill, then Charlie, Percy, George, and then Ron last. Then me, the baby of them all.'

Harry frowned and ran through the list of names in his head. 'That's only five. I thought you said you had six brothers.'

Ginny's quill stopped scratching momentarily, then recommenced it's scribbling as she spoke quietly, her eyes glued firmly to the page. 'I _did_ have six brothers. George's twin, Fred, was killed at the Battle of Hogwarts.'

Harry felt it like a blow to the heart; one more person who shouldn't have had to die because of Tom Riddle. They tormented him, those deaths from the second war, and he could never help but feel that some of the blame rested with him, that he could have done more, could have finished it all more quickly than they had. If he and Sirius had gotten to Hogwarts quicker when they got the call, if the Order had puzzled out the locations of the horcruxes sooner, if he'd just _ended _Voldemort back in that bloody graveyard in Little Hangleton.

His hand reached out before he had even had time to think about it and settled on top of hers. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry.'

She looked up at him for the first time, and though her eyes were dry he could see the sadness in them; it was a pain that never fully went away, he was more than aware of that.

'You couldn't have known.' She said firmly, determined not to let him feel bad; he obviously hadn't known, and had no intention of bringing up painful memories when he asked. She sighed as she looked down at the order slip. 'I hope these bloody gloves arrive in time for me to send them to Romania for his birthday; I've left it a little late.'

Harry was quiet for a moment, and she was taken by surprise by his next words. 'Is he still a Falcon's supporter?'

'Yes. How in Merlin's name did you know that?'

'I told you, we talked Quidditch when I met him.' Harry answered absently, drumming his fingers on the table. 'Wait here a second.'

He rose quickly and left the kitchen, leaving her a little dumbfounded. How _anyone_ could remember a conversation they'd had years ago was beyond her, especially when it was small talk with someone you'd only just met. Still, she'd accepted over that last few days that Harry Potter was an extremely unusual person.

He was back moments later, waving a jersey in dark grey with white stripes on the sleeve. He handed it to her, and she looked at him curiously. 'What's this?'

'Next season's strip.' He answered matter of factly. 'Hasn't been released for public sale yet. For Charlie's birthday.'

Ginny felt her jaw drop, but she was in no state to worry about how she appeared right at that moment. 'I can't give him this Harry!'

'Why not?' He leaned back in his seat and took a few sips of tea.

'Well, for one, it feels like cheating, since I didn't actually, you know pick it out. And two, won't you get into trouble for giving out the strip before its release date?'

Harry snorted. 'Well, I suppose they _could_ fire me.' He answered solemnly. 'Yes, they could fire the only seeker they have with first team experience, and replace me with the eighteen year-old fresh out of Hogwarts. Yes, they could do that. Assuming that they ever find out that I shipped one of their free samples to Romania which, let's face it, is unlikely.'

Ginny felt the urge to pull a face at him, and feeling no need to resist it, she poked her tongue out at him, enjoying the way his eyes widened in surprise.

'Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit you know.' She brushed a hand over the jersey and smiled. 'Thank you. He'll love it, and you've saved me from feeling like a terrible sister. I might have to send it from here though, I can't risk other family members seeing it, or they'll demand to know where I got it.'

'Oh?' Harry raised his eyebrows enquiringly. 'Some of your other family members are Falcon's supporters then?'

'Oh, we all are more or less.' Ginny responded without thinking, hands still smoothing out the Falcon's insignia on the jersey. 'Ron supports the Cannons - black sheep of the family he is - but the rest of us have always been Falcons. They're Dad's team.'

When he remained quiet, she looked up to see him watching her with a grin. 'What?'

'So you're a Falcon's supporter?' He asked, a wicked grin lighting up his face.

It suddenly dawned on her that she'd unwittingly confessed her support for his team, and she hurried to backpedal. 'Well, I wouldn't say I'm a_ supporter_ exactly…'

'Do you own any Falcon's jerseys?' He asked teasingly. 'Or merchandise?'

Her blush must have been answer enough, because he smirked at her. 'Ha! Whose name is on your jersey?_ Please _say it's mine.'

Ginny rose from her seat with as much dignity as she could muster and gestured her finger threateningly at him. '_Yes_, I have a Falcon's jersey. More than one in fact. _No_, your name is not on any of them. And I may be assigned to protect you from Death Eaters but you needn't think that will stop me from jinxing you if you continue to annoy me; I know a few "harmless" jinxes that will nonetheless be _extremely_ uncomfortable, and I will not _hesitate _to use them, understand?'

Harry held up his hands in mock surrender. 'I solemnly swear never to mention this again, unless you bring it up first.'

'Right. Good.' Ginny nodded. 'I am going to send this to my brother, thank you very much for your generosity, and then I'm going to check your wards.'

She swept regally from the room, and Harry was not ashamed to admit that he tilted his head to better observe her backside as she left the room. Upside of pissing her off; she was awfully pretty with that flush of colour on her face.

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Ginny wrote complicated patterns in the air with her wand, and watched as the invisible barriers that made up the wards around Harry's house flickered into view. Anti-apparition, curse-blocking and muggle-repelling all rolled into one; they fascinated her, this type of complex protective spell.

She could see the wards that Harry himself had made, and they were distinct from the ones that Sirius had obviously laid over the top. The standard Ministry ones were there as well, a faint wall of pale green, but they were very different from the more intricate magic the two men had used; she'd never seen anything quite like it, though apparently something similar had been used at the Battle of Hogwarts.

Harry's were a silvery-blue and they shimmered like water, always changing but oddly constant at the same time, and surprisingly restful to watch. Sirius' were a very Gryffindor red, and they burned like a muted fire.

'Interesting aren't they? Bit like a patronus; a real representation of the soul.' Sirius' voice came from behind her, and if she'd been anything but a trained auror she probably would have jumped in shock, but as it was she simply spun around and automatically aimed a stunning spell, which he ducked with finesse before giving her that charming smile she suspected he reserved just for witches. 'Nice reflexes.'

'Sorry.' She said, without a lot of actual remorse in her tone; he must have noticed the same thing, because he threw back his head and laughed.

'My fault entirely Ginny Weasley.' He smirked at her. 'Still, nice to know my Godson's in good hands.'

'I'm not sure he'd agree with you.' She muttered as she turned back to her inspection of the wards.

'Oh, I think he does.' Said Sirius. 'After all, he hasn't actually thrown you out yet, and the best any of the others managed was three hours.'

She turned swiftly on the spot and her narrowed eyes focused on Sirius. '_What others?_'

He arched a curious eyebrow at her. 'Did Vance not tell you? You were the…fourth?...no, fifth I think, auror to be given this assignment. All the others got chewed up and spit out by Harry in a matter of hours.'

Ginny made a low growling noise in the back of her throat, and Sirius, recognising a woman ready to bite the heart out of the next man to irritate her, did his very best to prevent the amusement he felt showing outwardly; honestly, this whole Harry/Auror Weasley thing had the potential to be incredibly entertaining for him - not to mention good for Harry - and the last thing he wanted was to inadvertently convince her to throw in the towel.

'Four aurors before me? _Four?_ You're telling me that four of my highly trained, extremely professional colleagues were somehow intimidated off a case by Harry sodding Potter?'

Sirius pursed his lips and folded his arms as he briefly considered how to answer. 'Yeah.' He said eventually. 'I'd say you more or less hit the nail on the head there actually.'

Ginny scoffed. 'What in the name of Circe and Agrippa did he do to them?'

'Oh, he didn't actually _do_ anything.' Said Sirius cheerfully. 'He's just a very effective bully when he wants to be, and he _really_ wanted those aurors to leave him alone. How's it going on that front by the way?'

'I'd class him as grouchy but mostly co-operative at the moment.' Ginny answered, mouth still pursed in annoyance as she wondered what _else _Vance had failed to include in the case file for this particular assignment. She did _not _like surprises.

'Hmm, well he may be about to get a little less co-operative.' Sirius looked at her a little apprehensively as he spoke. 'It's been ten days since he was attacked, so the healers want to have a look at him. I thought it might be better to bring them here rather than drag him to St Mungo's unnecessarily.'

Ginny nodded approvingly, and Sirius continued speaking. 'Obviously they can't come unaccompanied, and I'm not available so Remus will be bringing them – have you met Remus?'

Ginny shook her head. 'No, I haven't.'

'Well, you'll like him. Everyone likes Remus. They'll be here at four-ish. Do you want me to let the Boy Wonder know?' He gestured towards the house, and Ginny inwardly giggled at the nickname for Harry. Only inwardly though. Professionalism.

'If you don't mind. I imagine he'll take it better from you, and I need to finish walking the boundary wards.'

'They are in tip-top shape I can promise you.' Sirius peered at them and gave a gentle push of his wand towards the iridescent barriers of magic, nodding approvingly when they solidified and hardened in the presence of his magic. 'I'll go speak to Harry.'

He began to walk away, then turned back briefly, his expression conflicted. 'I should tell you that I expect the healers to clear Harry to return to work – and I don't know how much more difficult he'll make himself when he's not limited to the house anymore.'

Ginny nodded in acknowledgement, a little distracted as she knelt by the wards; she'd rather been expecting the healers to clear him soon, he'd been moving around so much more freely in the last couple of days. Her brow furrowed when she realised that Sirius wasn't moving towards the house, but was standing still, his eyes fixed on her, his expression unreadable. He seemed to be struggling with something, then he opened his mouth and spoke in a rush.

'I'll be honest with you, he's probably going to be a hell of a lot more difficult once he's officially not ill anymore. He hates restrictions. He's lived with them for so long, and he thought he was done with it all.' He swallowed quickly, the muscle in his jaw working anxiously. 'Just…stick with him? He's tough, but he's not as tough as he thinks. He needs someone.'

Ginny jerked upright, her eyes widening. 'I don't think he'd agree.'

Sirius shook his head sadly. 'No, he probably wouldn't. For all his intelligence, there are a lot of things he still doesn't comprehend. He's never had much of a chance to. '

He scrubbed a frustrated hand over his hair. 'People say he's like his father you know, and in a lot of ways he is. But when you know the heart of him, the real actual heart, he's like his mother. And she was oblivious to some very important things too, for an awfully long time.'

Without another word he strode towards the house, leaving a rather confused Ginny standing alone in the gardens.

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**A/N: I guess you could say the start of this chapter was the AU version of Ginny's butter dish moment. I really felt there needed to be just a little sense of awkwardness between them, given the circumstances.  
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**I always appreciate comments, criticism etc, even if you only have one word to say. You can find me on Tumblr as scared-of-clouds (there's a link on my profile) if you want to talk to me over there, I'm cool with anons and I promise I will always answer; it might take me a day or so, but I will answer. **

**On another note, a few reviewers said that they had read quite a few stories where Harry was protecting Ginny; I'd _never_ come across a story like that before, so I went on a bit of a hunt. I only came across one - 'Against The Odds' by Bones365 - but if anybody has any others similar they'd like to recommend, I'd love to read a few more!  
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	6. Too Many Hasty Actions

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who recommended a fic for me, I appreciate it :)  
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**This chapter has been re-written twice because I just couldn't get it quite right. I think this is as close as we're getting to it being halfway decent, so I hope it's not too disappointing. **

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The kitchen fireplace blazed green, and Ginny stepped forward expectantly and raised her wand. The flames died down to reveal a tall man, slightly skinny for his height, with sandy-blond hair that was streaked with grey and a faint scar marking his cheek. He smiled disarmingly and raised his empty hands before speaking.

'Miss Weasley. Sirius told me you were rather quick with your wand. I believe he was impressed.' He looked her up and down quickly before continuing. 'I'm Remus Lupin. Sirius should have told you to expect me this afternoon with some healers to take a look at Harry. If he gave you a security question to establish my identity, please, ask away.'

She gave him a humourless smile. 'The wand isn't for you Mr Lupin; it's for whoever you're bringing with you. You wouldn't be able to access this house if you were an imposter; I know enough about the wards to know that they recognise your magical signature, so you wouldn't be able to fool them with polyjuice or transfiguration. They can't detect the Imperious curse though, so while I don't have any doubts that _you _are who you say you are, I can't say the same for the healers.'

Remus' face was expressionless for a moment, then his lips curved into a full smile. 'Clever girl. No wonder Moody liked you so much.'

Ginny was startled by that, but did her best to keep it from showing on her face. Remus turned back to the fire and opened the floo connection, allowing two more people, one man and one woman to tumble out of the kitchen fireplace.

'Healer Margot and Healer Spinnet, both from St Mungo's.' Remus announced, pointing first at the middle-aged man then the younger woman. 'If you two would just stay completely still and allow Ms Weasley to confirm your identities, we should all get through this with minimal bloodshed.'

When she thought about it, it was obvious why he and Sirius were friends; they shared that snarkiness and overly sarcastic sense of humour that hid the underlying geniality in the both of them. She ignored the gentle jab at her zeal for her job and checked the documentation of the healers while surreptitiously performing a number of revealing charms on them both. When she was satisfied with her checks, she stood aside and allowed the healers to enter the hallway, directing them to Harry's study on the first floor where he would habitually be at this time of that afternoon.

'I'm going to help myself to tea Miss Weasley, would you like some?' Remus asked amiably, making his way to the stove, apparently completely at home in Harry's house.

Ginny hesitated, unsure as to whether she ought to go and check on the healers; perhaps she shouldn't leave them alone with Harry. She'd done several very comprehensive checks on them and was absolutely confident that they weren't imposters, but still, how could she be absolutely certain that neither of them was a danger to him?

'I wouldn't worry. Those healers are both old friends' of Sirius'. He wouldn't let anyone he didn't trust implicitly within half a mile of Harry.' And Remus was able to read minds apparently. Or expressions perhaps; since she'd been here with Harry she'd relaxed her control over showing her emotions a little, and she wasn't keeping her poker face on at all times. Her concerns must have shown on her face.

He placed a mug of tea on the table in front of her and gave her a sly smile. 'I guess that means he trusts you eh?

She picked up her tea and took a sip, allowing the scalding liquid to soothe her suddenly dry throat. 'I don't think that had anything to do with it. I was assigned by the Ministry.'

Remus snorted as he pulled out a kitchen chair and settled himself on it, his height forcing him to stretch his legs out in front of him. 'And you don't think Sirius exerts any pull at all at the Ministry? He may "only" be a lawyer in the DRMC, but that isn't the extent of his influence; he's a Black, he's Harry Potter's Godfather _and_ a war hero in his own right. A hero in two wars in fact. If he hadn't liked you, you'd have been reassigned in a heartbeat.'

Ginny pulled a chair of her own out and sat down, suddenly intrigued by Remus' words. 'That's why he was here to meet me on my first day? It was an…interview?'

'Of sorts.' Remus nodded. 'He never actually interfered in the selection process, and he never stopped anyone Vance sent from meeting Harry, but if you weren't acceptable to both of them, you wouldn't be here. Even if Harry had liked you, if Sirius hadn't you'd be gone. The issue just never came up with any of the others, because Harry gave them the boot within hours.'

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table as he looked at her. 'You must be something special Auror Weasley.'

Ginny raised an eyebrow at him. 'I'm just an auror. If you're looking for unusual hidden talents, I don't have any.'

Remus grinned, a sudden quick smile that made him look years younger. 'I don't know. Handling Harry and Sirius requires some very _particular _gifts.'

'I didn't know he worked in the Department for the Regulation of Magical Creatures.' Said Ginny, suddenly determined to change the subject.

'He has a…let's call it a particular abhorrence…for people and animals being treated badly for no good reason other than what they were born. No surprise really, you know, given his upbringing and his response to it.'

'His upbringing?'

Remus looked at her curiously. 'I would have thought you'd know all about Sirius. And probably me too. Your parents didn't tell you much about him then?'

Ginny knew her confusion was showing on her face, but she didn't much care. What did her parents have to do with all this? 'Why would they? I wasn't even aware they knew you.'

He absorbed her words for a second and then nodded a little sadly. 'I can imagine them not wanting to talk about it actually. The war wasn't a nice experience for anyone, and the Order had it about the worst of anyone. Perhaps they just prefer not to pass any of those stories on to you.'

'You and Sirius were in the Order of the Phoenix.' Ginny realised. Of course they were, they'd raised Harry. It ought to have been obvious; there was no way he'd been a member of a secret society without them being a part of it also. She knew very little about it, despite the fact that her parents and the vast majority of her older brothers had been members. She'd been too young to join, and Order business had never been discussed with outsiders, not even her. After the war was over that attitude had prevailed, or perhaps it was simply a reluctance to discuss painful memories, but either way, she knew next to nothing about the Order or its members outside her own family.

'We were.' Remus confirmed. 'We both knew your parents quite well actually. Knew quite a few of your brothers too, by sight if nothing else. I think Harry met a few of them as well.'

'He told me he met Charlie.' Ginny remembered. 'I didn't even think to ask him how he came to be in the Order; he _must_ have been too young, he's the same age as my youngest brother, Ron.'

'Ah well.' Remus looked a little sad. 'Different rules have always applied to Harry. We couldn't tell him he was too young when we were all pinning our hopes on him. I wish we could have.'

Ginny hesitated, not sure what to say here. Remus was obviously upset about the way Harry had been forced to grow up, but the thing was, he wouldn't have been _Harry_ if it had happened differently. If his parents had survived, if Voldemort hadn't existed, if he'd been a normal child, he wouldn't have become the person he was today, and infuriating though it was to admit, what he'd become was extraordinary. Between them, Sirius and Remus had done their very best for Harry, and she was sure he knew and appreciated that. Apparently, Remus didn't see it quite like that. She was about to speak, to try and express her rather scattered thoughts when the healers re-entered the kitchen, both smiling brightly.

'We've given him the all-clear Mr Lupin.' Healer Spinnet announced cheerfully. 'Never seen anyone bounce back so quickly from an attack like that.'

Remus laughed. 'Oh, Harry's always healed quickly. Is he in his study? I'd like to have a word with him before I head off.'

'Oh no.' Healer Margot replied. 'He went out.'

'He what?' Ginny shot up out of her seat, eyes narrowing furiously.

'Apparated straight out of the house.' Healer Spinnet shook her head. 'So quickly you'd have thought there were demons after him.'

'Oh, he'll _wish_ it was demons.' Ginny growled, marching to the floo and vanishing in a swirl of green fire without so much as a polite nod towards any of the visitors.

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It was beyond fantastic to actually be outside again, not cooped up in his house. It wasn't even as if he wanted anything from Diagon Alley, he just wanted to be away from the same four walls he'd been staring at for what felt like an eternity.

Oh, he'd strolled around the gardens most days, and the house was big enough that he wasn't actually _confined_, but it wasn't at all the same as being free to go where you wanted, any time you wanted. The only reason he'd obeyed healer's orders and stayed cooped up all that time was because Sirius had unleashed a guilt trip of epic proportions, and then extorted a promise from him once he was backed into a proverbial corner. He never broke promises to Sirius. So he'd played the good patient – well, as close to it as his nature would allow – and he'd sat at home for days on end. But now he'd been cleared as fit, and as far as he was concerned he'd kept his promise and now he was free again.

If he was being honest with himself, he could admit that he'd felt the slightest twinge of guilt about disappearing out of the house without telling Ginny, but damn it, he'd needed some space from her too.

She was there _every day_ for hours on end, just sitting or walking or drinking tea and it drove. Him. Mad. His house smelt of her, even when she wasn't there; he'd sit in his kitchen or his study and catch a hint of her scent, he'd turn over in his bed at night and sodding well smell her, even though she hadn't been _near_ his bedroom since that first tour he'd taken her on. There were coffee mugs with lipstick on the rims in his sink, and when he sat on his sofa stray red hairs would catch his attention, snagged on the beige fabric. She clogged his senses up, and he needed to breathe different air for a while.

Of course he knew she wouldn't understand any of that, even if he was willing to tell her - which he definitely _wasn't _- so he was fully prepared for the inevitable row when he got home later. It was worth it for the few hours of peace.

He strolled around Diagon Alley, pleased that it was a Tuesday afternoon during the school term and that the street was as quiet as it ever got; he tried his best to appreciate fans, but signing autographs and having people ask what it was like to kill the Dark Lord would get wearisome for anyone.

He browsed through Flourish and Botts, buying nothing although several books caught his eye, stopped into Sugarplums for some sweets that he planned on attempting to bribe Ginny with later, then he stopped in Quality Quidditch Supplies to see whichever of the Broadmoor brothers was working today. They were Falcons legends, long before Harry's time, but he'd had an affection for them ever since Kevin had bluntly told him he was too tall to be a seeker when he'd come in to buy gloves for his try-out for the Falcons. He'd been offered a position with the team two days later, and Karl had sent him a complimentary pair of gloves every match for the entire first season. They never failed to make him laugh, and he appreciated that they never treated him as "Harry Potter". He was just Harry.

He felt much better by the time he left QQS, and decided to improve his mood still further by visiting yet another old friend, one who never ceased to amaze and surprise him. He walked the full length of Diagon Alley until he reached the very last shop on the corner before Knockturn Alley, and he pushed the door open and entered Interesting and Unusual Artefacts.

The little shop was empty, as it often was, and the smell of potpourri was heavy on the air. The shelves were littered with what looked like an enormous array of junk, interspersed with the odd valuable object. Harry had never been able to work out if there was an order to the placement, because if there was it made no sense to him; he peered at the nearest shelf and saw a wand that had belonged to a famous duelling champion placed next to a rock with absolutely no magical qualities that he could see.

He propped an arm against the counter and waited, knowing that there was absolutely no way on this earth that you could hurry the person he was waiting for. Still, today must have been his lucky day because he'd only been waiting five minutes when the beaded curtain that separated the storeroom from the shop was pulled back, and a girl with long blonde hair and an air of perpetual amazement wondered through it.

She saw him leaning against the counter and stopped, carefully placing the crystal she was carrying on a shelf before she floated over to Harry and wrapped her arms around his waist.

He couldn't help the smile as he hugged her back. 'Hi Luna.'

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Ginny stormed through the Ministry, heels pounding on the solid floor as she forced her way through the crowded corridor to the Department for the Regulation of Magical Creatures. She entered the department main office and immediately began scanning the room for an immaculately groomed head of black hair.

What she spotted instead was the name "Sirius Black" emblazoned on an office door, a secretary's desk in front of it with a well-dressed brunette sat at it. She didn't slow down for a second, just kept up her furious pace as she approached his office, ploughing through the clouds without so much as a hastily thrown apology. The dark-haired girl looked up at the sound of her approach, and to her credit managed a friendly smile towards the irate redhead steamrollering her way towards her desk.

'Good morning. Is Mr Black expecting…'

Ginny cut her off. 'Is he free? Excellent.' Without waiting for a response from the obviously slightly dumbfounded secretary, Ginny opened his door and stomped in.

Sirius' head jerked up, his expression confused for a second before her registered her presence and he stood up and shooed away his secretary's apology for the intrusion. He closed the door behind the flustered woman and turned to face Ginny, his brow furrowing and his eyes clearly displaying concern.

'What's happened?'

'What's happened?' Repeated Ginny. 'I'll tell you what's happened! Your idiot of a godson has completely disregarded all our concerns for his safety and buggered off somewhere by himself!'

Sirius collapsed back into his desk chair and covered his eyes with one hand. 'He's what?'

'The healers came, they gave him the all-clear, and apparently that gives him carte blanche to sod off by himself whenever he feels the need to, the moronic shit-for-brains!' Ginny's hands were clenched into fists at her sides, and Sirius suddenly found himself feeling sorry for Harry; he didn't want to contemplate what Ginny was going to do to him when she caught up with him, but he doubted it would be enjoyable.

Ginny was aware of the visible signs of her temper, could feel the heat in her cheeks as she flushed with anger, knew her hands were trembling with suppressed rage but she couldn't bring herself to care. She probably shouldn't be inventively cursing Harry to his godfather either, but Sirius didn't seem to be in any way put out by her rather unprofessional display, and she probably couldn't rein it in anyway.

She was furious with him, not for going out, but for not _telling_ her; she wouldn't have _stopped _him, she would just have insisted on going with him, and that was for his own safety, bloody curse him, the stupid arse.

She'd thought - and it hurt a little to admit this to herself - that things had changed between them. She'd thought that he'd listened to her, that he'd understood when she'd told him she had no interest in trying to run his life or curtail his activities. She'd been under the impression that he'd been willing to find a middle ground with her, to work with her to make this assignment bearable for both of them. The fact that he'd broken her trust in him and just run off at the first opportunity…well it hurt, quite frankly, and the pain of feeling betrayed was fuelling her already dangerous temper to new levels of fury.

Sirius sighed. 'He promised me he'd stay at home while the healer's recommended it; now they've given him the okay, he probably doesn't feel the need to keep that one anymore. And as for disappearing without telling you…well, I did say that he was likely to get a lot harder to handle once he wasn't confined anymore.'

Ginny folded her arms across her chest. 'Oh, don't worry, I can handle him. This is a one-time only issue. If he wants to play nasty, fine. I've plenty of tricks up my sleeve that he won't like. I just need to know where to look for him, so I can drag his sorry arse somewhere there won't be witnesses to what I'm about to do to him.'

Sirius sighed. 'You're angry. _Justifiably_ angry. But please, remember what I said. Harry is… Just don't give up on him just yet okay? He thinks he can handle everything by himself, and he can't.'

Ginny said nothing, her eyes boring into his as she stared at him, and he scrubbed his hands across his face. 'If he's not with me or Remus – which he obviously isn't – and he hasn't gone to the stadium, then I'd try Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade. He likes crowded streets; they offer a certain amount of anonymity. Sometimes he likes to wander round the muggle parts of London, but I don't think he'd have wandered that far today.'

'Thank you.' Ginny spun on her heel and left, directing an apologetic smile at Sirius' secretary as she went; it must not have come out quite right though, because the poor woman looked alarmed rather than mollified. Oh well. Bigger fish to fry right at this minute.

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Luna was without doubt the oddest person Harry knew, but something about her was always soothing to him; Harry often thought it was because she was so incredibly comfortable in her own skin, never feeling the need for pretensions or faux niceties. Her affection was simple and honest, her mind was open and seeking and utterly without judgement.

He'd met her when he was about five or six, and he'd considered her a good friend for the whole of his life, even though he'd gone months at a time without seeing her.

He and Sirius had been living in Suffolk, and the young Harry had been out playing when he had seen an odd girl, covered in mud up to her eyebrows, wandering through fields near their house; she had been unable to see either him or the house due to the wards in place around it. He had called for Sirius, and Sirius, recognising her as magical instantly, had gently approached and questioned her.

Luna had unselfconsciously announced that she was on an expedition with her father to look for Black Shuck, the ghostly black dog that was rumoured to haunt the area; apparently sightings had increased recently. Harry remembered that Sirius had looked a little shocked, and at least a little guilty at that.

At any rate, Luna and her father had become separated, she'd fallen into a bog during her search for him, and that was how she'd come across Harry, cold, tired and mud-spattered. Sirius had gone out and found her father, and the two of them had been invited for dinner. Harry and Luna had become instant friends – sometimes he thought they were just kindred spirits, because neither of them really _belonged_ anywhere – and Sirius had allowed Luna to visit Harry over the years; though when they were old enough to write they became more pen-pals of a sort and visits became more and more infrequent.

The friendship they had was an odd one - Harry had spent many years hidden away, and Luna had been at school, then on frequent expeditions for her artefacts, so they had never actually spent a great deal of time together – but it was close. Sitting in her shop, doing his best not to grimace while drinking her oddly flavoured tea of choice, Harry felt calm for the first time in weeks.

'So I'm sure they are there, they just aren't showing themselves. I'll go back when they're in a better mood.' Luna's dreamy voice trailed off, and Harry smiled at her over the rim of his teacup.

'What on earth makes you think there are Kelpies in Wolverhampton? No-one has claimed to see one in years, but I seem to recall that the lore usually has them in lonely, isolated places.'

'Cities _are _lonely, isolated places.' Luna answered in that preoccupied way of hers. 'You only have to look at the people who live in them to see that; always rushing around, never connecting with each other.'

Harry stopped sipping his tea and frowned; batty as she was, Luna almost always had a point about this kind of thing. People in cities _did _often feel solitary or isolated; maybe being alone in a city full of people was the modern form of loneliness. Didn't he often escape into muggle London for that exact reason; to be invisible and unnoticed?

He shrugged the thoughts off and finished his last gulp of tea. 'I should get going Luna.'

He stood up, and she rose from her chair to hug him again; he held onto her for a moment, glad to still have this simple childhood affection in his life.

'Are you going to come and see me soon?' He asked as he stepped away from her and grabbed his cloak.

'Yes.' She answered, drifting towards the shop counter. 'I'll be coming to Cornwall soon anyway to look for the Owlman.'

Since Harry's back was to her as he put his cloak on and she couldn't see his face, he allowed it to crease into a smile as he shook his head. The minute he'd told her he'd signed to the Falcons she'd told him the legend of the Cornish Owlman, and he'd been forced to promise that if he should ever see it he would report it to her immediately. He didn't have the heart to tell her that the myth had more or less debunked – she wouldn't have believed him anyway.

He kissed her on the cheek and left the shop in an inordinately good mood – he even felt better about the whole Ginny situation, having explained it all to a sympathetic but totally unhelpful Luna – and began to walk down the street to one of the standard apparition points, with the intention of going home and facing the music, or more accurately, the outraged shrieking of one _very _pissed-off witch.

He was whistling tunelessly to himself when he noticed a cloaked figure approaching him quickly out of the corner of his eye; his searching fingers found his wand, and he held it carefully concealed under his cloak. He slowed down as he came up to the entrance of an alley, then in one swift movement he stepped inside it, drew his hood over his face, pressed his back to the wall and waited. Footsteps came towards him, quick but quiet, and he held his wand out in front of him as he stood patiently.

His follower was quicker than he'd anticipated; they'd stepped round the corner and seen his wand levelled at them, instantly ducked underneath it and come up directly in front of him with their own wand. Unable to get a spell off quickly enough, he grabbed the hand brandishing a wand at him and used the leverage of the arm to spin the smaller person around, pushing them into a wall and pressing his weight against them to hold them there while he wrestled their wand hand above their head, pressing it to the wall. He felt a knee come perilously close to his groin, and as he jerked to avoid it his hood fell down and the person he was pinning gave a startled squeak.

'Harry?'

He knew that voice. 'Ginny?' He asked uncertainly, lifting his hand away from her hips and flicking her hood down. Red hair spilt out, and golden-brown eyes flashed angrily at him.

'Would you get the hell off me you utter, utter cretin?!' She demanded, and when Harry registered that he was, in fact, still pressing her into the wall with the weight of his entire body he stepped away, dropping her like he'd been burned.

'I didn't hurt you did I?' He reached out to touch her wrist where he'd been grasping her.

'Of course not!' She slapped away his hand, and his concern, and he straightened up and stepped away from her.

'Sneaking up on people is a bad habit.' He said mildly, eyes focused on her as she straightened up her clothing.

She glowered at him. 'I was walking over to you _discreetly,_ to avoid drawing attention, when you suddenly lurched into this alleyway; I thought you'd been grabbed so I ran after you, and _please excuse_ my survival instincts, but when I walk around a corner and into a wand, I assume the owner is unfriendly!'

Harry glared right back. 'Well, if you hadn't been sneaking up on me in the street, I wouldn't have thought I was being followed, wouldn't have ducked into the alleyway and this whole sorry affair wouldn't have happened!'

Ginny's eyes narrowed as she felt her anger rise again. 'Really Potter? You want to play the blame game? Because let's face it, none of this would have happened_, IF YOU'D STUCK TO THE SODDING RULES AND TOLD ME YOU WANTED TO GO OUT! _I've been chasing you around for the last _two hours_!'

Harry felt a clench of guilt in his stomach at that. Now that he had a moment to look at her clearly he was sure there was a certain amount of fear and worry mixed in with the anger, and no wonder; this was her work assignment. No matter how _he_ felt about it, his safety was her responsibility and if something happened to him, whether it was her fault or not, she'd have to answer for it to the Ministry. And he wondered when exactly he'd begun to care about that.

Because that was exactly the problem; he _did_ care. It _wasn't _a faceless auror standing there scolding him, it wasn't some humourless nag trying to control him, it was _Ginny_. And somewhere along the line, he'd started to care about Ginny Weasley.

He moved towards her and caught the wrist she'd been unconsciously rubbing with her other hand. Her skin was cold, but it was smooth and soft and he found his thumb tracing lazy circles on it without him having to think about it. 'I'm sorry Ginny.' He couldn't honestly say he was sorry for going out without getting _permission_, but he _was_ sorry he'd upset her. 'And I'm sorry if I hurt you.'

She'd obviously been wound up for a much bigger fight, because her eyes went wide, her pupils dilating and the set of her jaw relaxing. 'Okay.' She said finally, pushing down the remnants of her anger, at least temporarily. 'We'll sort this out at your place.'

He nodded, glad of at least a brief reprieve, and the two of them headed towards the end of the alley and back out onto the street. They'd barely taken two steps when a voice called Ginny's name; she threw a look over her shoulder and started muttering unhappy curses under her breath. Curiosity raised, Harry craned his neck to see a tall, slender brunette approaching them.

'Romilda.' Ginny's tone made it clear she was not happy to see Romilda, but she was either oblivious or unconcerned as she made her way over to them and air-kissed Ginny's cheek.

'Haven't seen you in forever sweetie!' Romilda exclaimed. 'Hiding yourself away with all that auror work, must be_ terribly_ fatiguing.'

Ginny sighed, seemingly determined not to be got at. 'It is hard work, but it's worth it.'

'Hmmm.' Romilda sounded unconvinced. 'And who is this you're falling out of alleys with, with your hair all dishevelled…' She turned to Harry and got a good look at his face for the first time; she started, but carefully concealed her surprise as she turned her attention back to Ginny. 'Well I say, Harry Potter. And how in Merlin's name do you two know each other?'

Harry looked quickly at Ginny as she flushed red and began stammer some rather rambling sentences; he recognised the problem almost immediately. She couldn't, or wouldn't rather, tell the truth because she'd told him she wouldn't, and Harry truly believed that she would keep her promise. She couldn't use the lie about being his assistant, because Romilda knew full well that she was an auror. She was struggling to say anything coherent, and there was only one story he could think of that an obvious gossip seeker like Romilda would go for; granted, Ginny was probably going to murder him for it later, but he'd worry about that when the time came.

He slid an arm around her waist and pulled her tightly to him, ignoring her look of surprise. 'Come on now sweetheart. We weren't going to be able to keep it a secret forever, now were we?'

And he kissed her.

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**A/N: theGIRLwhoREADStooMUCH totally called the Harry/Luna friendship, so good guess! I laughed like anything when I saw your review; we must think in a similar way :)**

**Kelpies, The Cornish Owlman and Black Shuck are actual legends if anyone's interested. You're probably not. **

**Anyway, review and blurt out your feelings on this chapter! Praise, criticisms, random word vomit, I'm cool with anything really.**


	7. The Aftermath

**A/N: I feel like I've been editing this for a century, it was hard to get right (she says, really hoping it's come out okay after all that). Apologies for the delay in updates, but I got busy :) I know I say it a lot, but I will try and be quicker. I should be back on my regular work pattern soon, so that should free up some writing time. I'm on Tumblr as scared-of-clouds, and I tend to post snippets and info on updates over there, so you can always check that out if you're desperate.**

**And to the person who messaged me to say that they were sick and hoping for a new chapter to read: I won't name you because that would be mean, but I'm sorry this took so long, and I hope you're better, but if you're not, I hope this cheers you up!  
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She was pretty sure she'd been angry. No, she was _still_ angry. Very definitely. Definitely and justifiably angry. She knew she was, she just couldn't feel it at the moment, because everything she had been feeling had been effectively smothered by Harry.

If she'd been asked to _express _what she was feeling at that moment, the only word she would have managed was _Harry_; her heart was beating his name out with every pound.

_Harry. Harry. Harry._

One of his arms was looped around her waist to hold her close, his long fingers resting on her hip, and the other was buried in her hair. The only thing she could smell was that faint hint of clean-smelling aftershave that always followed him around. She'd grown so accustomed to smelling it these days; it lingered in his house, it was on every item of clothing he discarded. She sometimes thought she could smell it when she was at home, and the thought sent her running to the window to check he hadn't arrived without her realising.

Of course those were only ever brief moments, symptoms of her escalating insanity. Harry Potter had no reason to ever come to her home – the closest the Burrow would get to having him in it was her poster of him. And she was seriously considering getting rid of _that_, since it was doing her no good at all to be surrounded by him all day, then have his image stare at her all night.

Merlin, she'd always known she'd be sunk the second his lips touched hers, she just didn't think he'd ever actually _do _it. If she'd realised what he was about to do, she would have found some way, _any _way, to avoid this.

It wasn't really his fault. He couldn't have known that she had some insane, irrational attraction to him, couldn't have been aware that by doing this he was going to squeeze her heart into a bloody pulp.

And the really, really dreadful thing? She didn't even _care _that she would feel terrible about this later, when she remembered it and remembered that it was fake, she just threw herself into the kiss with everything she had, because if this was going to be the only kiss she ever got from Harry Potter, then she was damn well going to make it a _phenomenal _one.

So she pressed back against him, pushed her body against his, sank her hands into his hair and allowed herself to pretend for one all too brief but wonderful moment that this was real as his mouth caught and clung with hers.

Harry had never thought for a second that Ginny would play along with his little charade. He thought he might manage to sneak a brief kiss, then he would have to rely on her self-control – which he hoped was still good after being sorely tested today – to prevent her from hexing him until their lie had passed muster with Romilda, and they could at least remove themselves from the middle of Diagon Alley before the fighting started.

So when she wove her hands into his hair and leaned into him, he almost, for one brief, thrilling moment, forgot that he had no right to do this, that she was more than likely going to kill him for it, or at least curse him rather painfully, and that he ought to be deeply ashamed of the fact that he was thoroughly enjoying every second of having her pressed this close to him, that flowery scent wrapping around him and making his head reel.

It took him a good few seconds longer than it should have for him to let her go, and he'd remember to feel bad about that later, but right now he felt very little other than a wave of elation, which would no doubt end only when Ginny hexed his lips off for touching her. He had to give her points for her acting though;_ he_ almost thought she meant it when she kissed him back, so surely Romilda would be fooled?

The kiss probably only actually lasted a few seconds, but it seemed like forever to Ginny, at least until Harry's lips left hers and the horrible world of reality rushed back in. Harry let go of her gently and turned to beam at Romilda, who was shell-shocked and speechless in front of them. Ginny felt like she'd been clubbed over the head. She blinked several times before her brain kicked in enough to remind her that she still needed to get Harry away from here, and she began to cast her mind around for the quickest, most painless way to extract them from Romilda.

'And when did this happen?' Romilda was gushing insincerely. 'You'd think something like this would have been in the papers; the great Harry Potter snatched up at last.'

'We're being discreet.' Harry answered easily, the lies falling from his lips with the practised ease of someone who'd spent half his life doing press conferences. 'It can be hard to begin a relationship in the public eye.'

'And we'd appreciate it if you could be discreet also.' Ginny added pointedly, her mind actually beginning to work properly again through the Harry-induced fog.

'Oh, of course.' Romilda purred. 'You can count on me Ginny. Oh, look at the time! Must dash!' She turned and disappeared back into the crowds, and Ginny rubbed a hand over her eyes as she turned back to Harry and sighed.

'She'll be heading off to tell everybody she's ever met.'

Her eyes rose to Harry's face, which was set in a carefully composed mask of innocence, and the fury that had been temporarily derailed by lust began to bubble through her veins again with renewed force. Her eyes narrowed and she reached out and grabbed a fistful of his robes.

'Come with me Potter.'

And she turned swiftly and disapparated them both.

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Harry was pretty sure he was a dead man.

He'd seen the look in Ginny's eyes right after he'd kissed her, and for a moment he'd been optimistic that she might_ not_ want to kill him for this. For just a second he could have sworn he'd seen the same the lust filled daze that he knew would have been on his face if he hadn't been rigidly controlling his emotions, but if the look in her eyes when Romilda had left and she'd grabbed his robes was any indication, he'd been sorely mistaken about that.

This was more or less confirmed by the fact that he didn't even have a second to scope out their surroundings when they landed before his face was covered with screaming flapping things. Ginny had yanked her wand out the instant her feet had touched the ground, and she'd hadn't even had to focus her magic to hex him; a wave of pure, turbulent emotion had crashed through her and out of her wand, and she had to admit, even as she reeled from the after-effects of that _stupid_ kiss, that it was quite possibly the finest Bat-Bogey hex she had ever produced.

The instant she'd cast it, she'd turned away from him, unable to actually think properly while she was faced with him, even if his face_ was_ currently buried under a large number of flapping wings. As an added precaution, she took a few steps away, focusing on her surroundings as she tried to steady her breathing. It had been years since her family had camped here, but the childhood memories came easily as she reached for them, and the thoughts of campfires, and Quidditch games and exploding snap calmed her frayed nerves like nothing else would have been able to.

Harry grunted slightly from the effect of the spell, but quickly located his wand and cast the counter curse for the Bat Bogey Hex before scanning the area for Ginny. They were in a forest, nowhere he recognised, in a small clearing of trees, and she was standing on the far side of it, facing away from him with her arms wrapped around her small frame.

He tucked his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels for a few moments while he waited for her to speak. Or look at him. Or just acknowledge his existence in any way.

Not that he blamed her for being reluctant to do so. He was feeling thoroughly ashamed of himself by now; he'd never just jumped on a girl like that in his life, and he didn't begrudge her the hex one little bit. He still couldn't think of a single other lie he could have come up with that would have convinced Romilda, but that didn't excuse him putting hands on her.

If he was being totally truthful with himself, he'd known at the time that the kiss probably wasn't necessary; he could more than likely have just put an arm around her and the lie would have stood.

If he was being totally truthful with himself, he would have been able to admit that he'd kissed her because he wanted to, because he couldn't take being so close to her and not knowing what she tasted like anymore.

If he was being totally truthful with himself, he might have been able to admit that she was under his skin, etched across his brain and written into every one of his senses.

So it was probably in his best interests that he carried on lying to himself for a little while.

'Ginny.' Of the two of them, he was probably more surprised than she was that he'd broken the silence. 'Ginny, I shouldn't have done that, and I'm sorry. You have every reason to be angry at me.'

She still didn't speak, didn't feel _able_ to speak, and her back remained firmly towards him, the tension still obvious in her posture. Harry felt a little bit of panic rise up in the back of his throat; for the first time, he considered the possibility that she might resign her posting, that she might leave him totally. Not so long ago that would have thrilled him, and part of him still wanted that, wanted her to go so that he could go back to his calm and logical life where red-headed, freckled women with whiskey-brown eyes didn't trample their way through his dreams every night.

But that part of his brain was being quite firmly shouted down by the part that_ liked_ knowing that she'd be sat in the kitchen at lunchtimes, that _liked_ the flowery fragrance that lingered around every corner of his house, and wanted to keep that in his life.

'Ginny.' He tried again. 'Would you speak to me please? Or at least throw another hex my way or something.'

She tensed her shoulders but didn't turn around as she responded, lest she be tempted to kiss him or kill him. Either was quite possible at this moment. 'Do not tempt me Potter. Even I'm not sure what I'm capable of right now.'

'Right. Sorry.' He lapsed into silence again. Now he was certain that she was more or less okay – though he didn't like that tremble in her voice – he could wait for her to lead the conversation. She deserved that much from him at least.

They stood for a few moments, the gap between them no more than a few yards, though it may as well have been miles. When she turned back to him, she looked cool, composed, and a damn sight more collected than he probably did. She would have been pleased to hear it, since she didn't feel any of those things.

'Okay Potter. I'm mad, and I'm not going to pretend I'm not. I don't care who you are, Harry Potter, you don't kiss me without my permission. Clear?'

Harry raised his hands. 'Completely clear.'

'Right then.' Ginny sighed and dropped her arms from their position around her waist. 'Much as it pains me to admit it, this does give us the opportunity to explain away the amount of time I'm going to be spending around you. I mean, I can be as unobtrusive as possible but sooner or later someone's going to ask you why I'm constantly around, and saying I'm your PA would only work for so long. Besides, at some point someone would recognise me and ask awkward questions, just like today.'

Harry allowed her words to sink in for a moment, letting them mull around in his brain so that he was sure he fully understood the implications of what she had just said. When he'd done that, his mind still refused to accept his conclusions, so he was forced to ask for clarification.

'I'm sorry, I may have completely misunderstood you, but are you suggesting that we continue the charade I just started and pass you off as my girlfriend?'

She actually blushed. It was adorable.

The second the thought entered his brain he wanted to pick up a stick from the ground and beat himself over the head with it. He had no business thinking that she was adorable. Or cute, or beautiful, or captivating, or any of the other stupid adjectives that rushed through his head when he looked at her.

She bit her lip before she answered, and cursed herself for it. She'd never been shy, never been tongue-tied around people, so why on Earth did he have to have that effect on her now, when it was possibly the most inconvenient moment? 'I know it's a bit far-fetched, that you'd be dating me, but we've started the lie now, and believe me, if Romilda knows so does half the wizarding world. It might be easier to just carry it on.'

She moved across the clearing and sat on a fallen log, waiting patiently for a response. The anger was long-gone now, leaving her feeling empty of emotion and utterly wrung out. After a few moments thought, Harry joined her on her makeshift bench. 'Why would it be far-fetched?'

She gave him a look he could best describe as withering. 'Because you're Harry Potter, and I'm just me.'

He turned his head to look down at her. 'Ginny Weasley, I may not have known you very long, but I think I can quite confidently say that you are worth several of me. At least you do something worthwhile with your time. I chase a flying ball.'

She laughed, and he was surprised at how much it lifted his spirits to hear even such a small giggle from her.

'You _do _chase a flying ball, and they pay you a thousand times more than me I imagine, and that's because every time you _catch _that little golden ball, you make thousands of people happy. Including a large majority of my family. I think that could be considered worthwhile.'

He looked at her, one eyebrow raised, and she lifted her own in response before continuing. 'Besides, I think destroying Voldemort and freeing the country from tyranny probably bought you a free pass from doing anything useful for the rest of your life.'

It hit like a blow, just as it always did, and Harry looked down at the ground. 'I didn't really you know. I just cast the last spell. There was an entire team of people that were responsible for his downfall; I was just…a victim of circumstance.'

There was another moment of silence between them, this one much more comfortable than the last few had been, then Harry nudged her elbow with his. 'Do you think we could actually go back to my place now? Not that it isn't pretty here, but it _is_ cold and I could do with a drink.'

Ginny looked up at him and managed a weak smile before nodding; they stood and Harry held his hand out hesitantly. After a moment's thought, Ginny stepped closer and slipped her hand into his, allowing him to apparate them both.

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They appeared at a point on the cliffs, a short distance from where Ginny knew his house to be; she couldn't see it, since it was so heavily warded and cloaked, but she knew it was there, recognising the outline of this stretch of the coast from their walks in the garden. He began to walk slowly, roughly in the direction of his back garden by her estimation, and she recognised that his gentle pace was for her benefit, since he habitually strode everywhere.

She was grateful for the slower pace, since it allowed her the opportunity to try and get a firmer handle on her free-wheeling emotions; the memory of his lips on hers refused to fade, and though she still felt some vestige of anger towards him for pouncing on her, she found she couldn't be angry that he'd kissed her. Not when she'd wanted him to.

She could be angry at herself though, for responding, for allowing her growing attraction to him make her forget what she was here for, for dropping her guard in public even for those few, too-brief seconds when his lips had met hers and erased any thoughts of his safety from her mind.

'Wait a minute.' Harry held up a hand and she stopped alongside him as he pulled his wand from his pocket and drew complicated patterns in the air, runes written in bright silver lines that hung unsupported. He paused briefly in the middle of his pattern as a thought occurred to him, and he added some more intricate lines. Then he held out a hand for hers, and she hesitated only briefly before she tangled her fingers with his, ignoring the little electric jolt that travelled up her arm and down her spine as their palms met. He gave her a brief smile of reassurance, then stepped into the runic pattern he'd drawn in the air.

The air shimmered and blurred as they stepped through, and then Harry's house was in front of them and they were stood on the familiar path of his back garden. The pattern in the air blinked out of existence, and they were back inside the wards and hidden from the world; before now Ginny hadn't appreciated how nice that could be, to be wrapped up in a little bubble where no-one could see you. She knew Harry found it frustrating, but she thought that he'd soon appreciate it if he spent a long enough period of time being crowded by other people. Say, living in a house with eight other people or sharing a school dorm with four nosy girls.

They walked towards the house in silence until they reached the kitchen door and went in. Ginny paused by the kitchen table, but Harry tugged on their still-joined hands and pulled her along the hallway towards the sitting room. Up till that moment she hadn't even realised that their hands were still clasped together from where they passed through the wards, and now she couldn't think of a way of letting go that wouldn't seem awkward.

Harry pushed open the door and led her in, then he let go of her hand, much to her unexpressed relief, and sank down on the sofa, burying his face in his hands. She hesitated for just a brief moment before sitting down next to him. She'd sat on the same sofa with him before without jumping on him, she could do it again. Maybe.

'So.' Harry raised his head and broke the silence, though he did look extremely uncomfortable doing so. 'I'm just going to say it one more time, because I feel like I have to: I'm sorry.'

He glanced up at her, and Ginny could read the sincerity in those green eyes now. She didn't trust herself to speak when he was looking at her so intently, so she just nodded and waited for him to continue, since he so obviously had something else to say.

'I can't ask you to pretend to be dating me as a cover Ginny. I can't, it's so unfair. We'll think of something else.' He grimaced to himself as he ran a hand over his messy hair, causing eve more strand to stand up on end. 'Maybe I'll have to give an interview, admit that I have an auror assigned. Maybe I can claim that the insurers are insisting or something, make it really clear that it's got nothing to do with the Death Eater thing.'

Ginny looked at him as he rambled, trying once again to puzzle out the conflicting parts of Harry Potter. In the week that she'd been with him, he'd seemingly come to accept the presence of an auror in his life – and she had to think that way, because thinking that he'd come to accept _her _presence in his life just made her insides hurt in an unfamiliar way – but she'd never thought that they'd reached this level of co-operation, with him actively considering revealing that he was receiving Ministry protection when he'd been so thoroughly set on _not_ doing that only days previously.

If she had to guess, she'd say he was suffering an extreme overdose of guilt about kissing her, and that was leading him to be extra specially accommodating. While she was tempted to encourage him to be truthful with the press – it would certainly make things simpler – she remembered his words from earlier in the week about not causing panic, about not offering the Death Eaters the publicity, and she knew she wouldn't be able to make him go through with it; she respected his stance too much.

'Harry.' She interrupted him. 'Harry, Romilda Vane is the biggest gossip since Rita Skeeter. There is no way she hasn't already told at least a dozen people. I'll get Vance to pile pressure on the Prophet to spike the story, but it's probably going to make it to the gossip pages at least. We may as well run with the lie.'

His mouth set in a grim line. 'No. You don't understand, it was a terrible idea. They'll_ crucify_ you Ginny. Every rag in the country will be trying to dig up something terrible about you, and if they can't, they'll make something up. I'll force them to retract it afterwards of course, but the damage will have been done.'

She rested her chin on her hand and stared at him. 'What damage?'

He blinked in confusion, the movement emphasised by his glasses, and she found it oddly sweet.

'The damage to your reputation Ginny. I'm not kidding, these hacks will do anything to sell papers, and that includes slandering you. Once those lies are out there, you will never be able to wipe them out entirely. Believe me, I know.'

Ginny had a sudden flashback to a series of headlines in the Daily Prophet some years ago now, written, funnily enough, by Rita Skeeter, about Harry's mental stability after he'd fallen out of thin air with a portkey outside the Ministry of Magic, claiming to have witnessed the return of Voldemort. He'd been vindicated, obviously, but she knew that the dregs of suspicion had lingered over him for a long time. She felt a sudden jolt in her chest at the idea that Harry was concerned for her welfare, but she ruthlessly suppressed the swelling feeling and focused on him.

'I don't care Harry. They can say what they like about me. My family and friends know the truth about me, and that's enough for me.'

'They'll do it to your family and friends too.' Harry warned, frustrated that she didn't seem to be understanding his warnings. 'Don't take this too lightly Ginny. You underestimate how much it can hurt.'

'My family….' She trailed off as she briefly second guessed what she was about to say, and then picked up again almost immediately. 'My family have always been big believers in doing the right thing. We're pureblood, did you know that?'

She looked up at him, remembering that he'd met at least some of her relatives during the Second War, and waited for him to respond. There was an odd sort of pause, and then Harry nodded slowly. Feeling his eyes boring into her intently, she dropped her gaze and looked at her hands as she spoke. 'We're purebloods, but Mum and Dad have always believed that doesn't make you _special_, doesn't make you _better _than anyone else. They've always taught us that our society would be better if it was more equal. They fought two wars for those beliefs. Every one of my brothers joined the Order, except Ron, who shouted at everyone for three days after Mum told him he was too young. My brother Bill was mauled by a werewolf, but was lucky enough that his fiancée still married him. Fred died.'

Harry opened his mouth to interrupt, but was silenced by one raised finger from her. 'After you saw Voldemort come back, when the Ministry was trying to smear you and Dumbledore, they sent a woman to Hogwarts to watch him.'

Harry made an odd growling noise in the back of his throat as he was plunged into some rather unpleasant memories. 'Delores Umbridge.'

Ginny nodded, making a mental note to find out when she and Harry had crossed paths. 'That's the toad. Anyway, Ron and I, and some of our friends, formed a sort of resistance group to oppose her.'

'Dumbledore's Army.' Harry was looking at her like he'd never seen her before, eyes wide behind the steel frames of his glasses. 'That was _you_?'

She nodded, a little shyly. 'What else could we do? With the example of our entire family in front of us? We couldn't join the Order, we couldn't support you directly, so we did what little we could.'

Harry shook his head slowly. 'While that's…that's actually _amazing _to be fair, I'm not sure how it's relevant to this.'

Ginny angled her body towards him, so caught up in her thoughts that she didn't appreciate quite how much she'd closed the gap between them with that one small movement, a fact that wasn't lost on Harry. 'The point is, that my entire life I've been taught to do the right thing, to do as much as I can, no matter how little it seems to be. And _this_, Harry, helping you keep the public calm, helping you make it seem like everything is normal, just by keeping up a charade in public…well, that's what I can do, isn't it?'

She looked at him and waited for a response, and it wasn't until he leaned forward to speak that she realised that their knees were touching, and his hand was brushing against hers where they both rested on the sofa, and his eyes were soft as they looked directly into hers.

'You are a miraculous human being, you know that?' His hand slid under hers, his fingers curling round to squeeze firmly, and she felt a smile spread across her face that she was helpless to stop. For someone who prided herself on being able to mask her emotions, she ought to have been bothered by how easily Harry seemed to be able to make her express them openly, but she really couldn't bring herself to care.

'You should tell your family the truth.'

She blinked repeatedly in surprise. 'I should what?'

'You trust them. So I trust them. If they're going to see your name dragged through the papers, they should at least know the real reason why.' His mouth broke into an amused grin as he trawled through his memories of the Weasley family. 'Besides, I've met your Mum. And I don't fancy your chances of getting a big fat lie like that past her.'

Ginny snorted a laugh. 'You'd be amazed. Weasleys have a_ fantastic_ capacity for lying, for that very reason. But it would be nice to be honest with them. Because, quite frankly, if I turned up at home – which is an entire house of Falcon's supporters mind you – with you in tow and introduced you as my boyfriend, they'd probably start planning the wedding.'

Harry laughed. 'At least we can be fairly sure they'd like me.'

'Your autographing hand would get tired after a while.' They both laughed a little louder for a few moments, in unspoken relief at the break in tension.

Harry was just standing to go and get some tea for them both when there was an almighty crash from the front garden. Ginny made it to the door just ahead of Harry, auror trained reflexes proving to be just that little bit faster than seeker ones; on the ground at least. She didn't doubt he'd kick her arse six ways from Sunday on a broom.

She wrenched the front door open, wand out held defensively in front of her, and was shocked to find what appeared to be an extremely large rock on the middle of the path, surrounded by the broken splinters of the garden gate. She stepped forward, then felt Harry's hand close around her arm and yank her back.

'Don't touch it.' He warned, pushing past her to look at it.

'Who's the auror here?' She huffed, taking a few steps forward, only to stop dead when he lifted his head from his examination of the rock to look at her; it was an expression she'd never seen before, calm, focused and a little annoyed.

He tapped his wand on the rock, and a small piece of parchment that had been stuck to it rose into the air. Ginny wandered up behind Harry to read over his shoulder.

**_You'll never get all of us. But it doesn't matter, because he'll get you._**

She frowned; it was an odd type of threatening note. Generally, people felt the need to bluster or vent their anger in some way, but this felt…cold. Calm. And somehow very much more ominous for it.

Harry had turned his attention back to the large rock and was flicking his wand at it. Ginny raised her own.

'Why don't I just levitate it back outside the wards?' She suggested, but Harry shook his head.

'There's just…something wrong here.'

'Yeah, one of these stupid threatening notes got through your wards.' Ginny answered. 'How?'

Harry waved a hand vaguely. 'Ah, it's a loophole I should probably have closed, but…' He trailed off, but seeing Ginny's expression, he sighed and stood up. 'The wards are designed to block _people_, and _spells_. They hide the house, prevent you from getting in, from throwing spells towards it, right?'

He raised his eyebrows at Ginny, who nodded in confirmation that she was keeping up with him. 'But they don't block everything. Rain still falls in here, right? Birds still fly through, leaves can blow through. I left it like that, because I bloody well like those things, and maybe that was stupid. Because something like a rock, or a tree branch - natural things I guess - can be rolled _through _the wards; but because you can't see the house you'd have to know where it is to do this.'

'So whoever it is knows you're here.' Ginny couldn't help the slight shiver. 'They just can't see you.'

'Right.' Harry continued prodding at the rock. 'The wards are good, but they aren't perfect. They can't protect against every eventuality.'

He gave the rock one last tap with his wand, then gave up and put it away. Ginny wandered over to stand next to him.

'It's just a rock.' He muttered. 'I was sure…why bother? There are other ways to send me nasty notes.'

'I think it's an "I know where you live" kind of gesture.' Ginny crouched down next to him. 'It's an escalation.'

He looked at her. 'Yeah, but a pretty pathetic one. "I know where you live, but I can't get to you or hurt you so have a rock." Yeah, that's done it, I'm terrified.'

'Don't be so blasé.' Ginny chided. 'How the hell did they know where you live? _Nobody_ knows where you live. _That's_ worrying.'

'Mmm, but still, a rock?' Harry placed a hand on the stone and rocked it.

He was just about to turn and tell Ginny to levitate it to wherever the hell she wanted, when he felt it quiver under his hand.

'It smells strange.' Ginny commented, reaching out to touch it. 'Don't you think? I feel like I should recognise the smell.'

His mind made a number of quick connections, and he rose from his haunches in one smooth movement, grabbed Ginny's arm and began pulling her away. The rock made a creaking sound, and her head turned of its own accord to look at it the rock in surprise; it was cracking all over, and almost looked like it was glowing from the inside.

She stumbled over her own feet as Harry kept tugging her away as she strained to look, and that was enough to bring her back to reality; he increased his pace as he pulled her towards the house, but it felt like they were struggling through treacle and time seemed to slow as the air around them heated, and then the rock exploded and the force of the blast sent them both flying to the ground.

The last thing Ginny remembered was hearing the glass blow out of Harry's downstairs windows, and feeling the fragments raining down on her back as she lay, stunned and disorientated, face down on the ground.

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**A/N: Yeah, I know, I suck. Feel free to tell me how much I suck, I don't mind. Thanks again to everyone who's reviewed, or favourited, or in any way expressed an interest in this story. You guys pretty much validate my existence.**


	8. Aftershocks and Complications

**A/N: Sorry this took so long everyone: As those of you who follow me on Tumblr will know, FF locked my account and I only got it back yesterday, so that complicated things a little. And we all know you aren't here to listen to me talk anyway.**

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The ringing in her head made thought difficult, but Ginny was aware of one very important thing that made it possible for her mind overpower her body and force her back into consciousness, and that was that Harry's safety was her responsibility. No matter what injuries she had – and boy did she have them, she felt like she'd been flattened by a dragon – he took precedence.

The sound of the explosion and the shattering of glass still echoed in her ears, and her limbs felt heavy and unresponsive, but she pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and attempted to steady herself on shaking limbs. The ground felt soft underneath her, like she didn't have proper control of her body and couldn't balance; it almost felt like she was sinking into mud, except the texture of the ground felt totally wrong.

She forced her eyes open, ignoring the pain as light speared into them, and tried to take in her surroundings. Unfortunately her surroundings made no sense; instead of finding herself kneeling on the grass of Harry's lawn, she was on top of a thick white duvet. Turning her head to one side she recognised the balcony doors of Harry's bedroom.

She was in Harry's bedroom.

And if she was resting on a fluffy white duvet, that could only mean one thing. She was on Harry Potter's bed. His actual bed.

Now she was aware of where she was, she thought she should have realised that she could smell him, in an all-encompassing sort of way; she'd just grown so used to having his scent surround her that she didn't always notice it anymore. This was different though; this was diluted Harry mixed with the smell of fresh laundry, not Harry's actual scent of heat and aftershave.

Merlin, what the hell was wrong with her brain? It must have been rattled by the explosion, because she was kneeling on Harry's bed, thinking about how his sheets smelled of him, but still didn't smell as nice as he did.

With slow and painstaking movements, she wriggled herself around until she was sitting on the bed, rather than hovering uncomfortably on her hands and knees. She blinked repeatedly as she tried to clear her mind, and her eyes focused on the door.

Harry. Find Harry.

She placed her feet flat on the floor and used her arms to push herself up, far more pleased than she ought to be that she could both support her own weight and maintain balance. She allowed herself a brief smile before she took a step towards the door, and promptly collapsed on the floor in an inelegant heap.

The door handle turned at that exact moment and she heard Harry's voice talking to someone in the hallway, his tone low and sombre, before the door swung fully open and he entered his room to find her prostrate on the ground. She quickly tried to get up, or at least reposition herself so that she looked like she had chosen to sit on the floor deliberately, but she knew it was in vain the moment she moved.

'Ginny!' Harry's voice was full of worry as he crossed the room in a quick stride, dropping to his knees next to her, his hands reaching to support her at the elbows as she pushed herself into a sitting position.

'You shouldn't be up.' He scolded as he lifted a hand to push her chin up so he could see her face.

She managed the barest of smiles for him. 'I'm supposed to be the one worrying about you remember?'

'Yeah, well.' His eyes, always so deeply green, were darker than she'd ever seen them, the pupils dilated wide. 'You took the worst of the blast when you threw yourself on top of me, you damn fool. I was hardly hurt.'

He took in the glazed expression in her eyes, and the corner of his mouth twitched up into a sad sort of smile. 'You don't even remember doing it did you? I bet you didn't even think about it, you just did it.'

'Auror training. It's ingrained.' She tried to shrug nonchalantly but found herself letting out a hiss as the movement made the skin on her shoulders tighten up painfully.

'Stop that!' Harry admonished sharply, his hand leaving her face to brush across the width of her shoulders. 'The skin on your back and shoulders is still knitting together. It took us forever to get all the shards of glass out and your tissues healing. You've been out cold for three hours.'

'Well…thanks.' Ginny answered uncomfortably, suddenly realising that she was wearing a shirt that obviously belonged to Harry, since it reached her knees and the material of the sleeves covered her hands entirely, and wondering precisely how he'd gotten her into it. Then her brain caught up with her ears. 'Us?'

'That would be me.' Sirius' amused voice came from the open doorway and Ginny flushed as she realised the picture she and Harry made, huddled together on the floor. Sirius' smile only widened as he took a few steps into the room, taking in his godson's carefully respectful hand placement and concerned eyes.

'Harry sent me a patronus once he'd recovered his senses after your little incident, so I grabbed Remus and we came right over.' He shook his head solemnly at her. 'You don't do things by halves do you Miss Weasley? Seems you took almost the entire force of the blast; you had some nasty injuries. Harry and I cleaned you up while Moony sorted the healing potions. We're both rotten at potions.' He gestured to Harry and himself with a self-deprecating smile.

'Moony?' Ginny asked weakly, and Sirius grinned in response.

'Old school nickname for Remus. Mine was Padfoot, to be fair.'

'How are you feeling?' Her attention returned to Harry who was still next to her, one hand resting on her shoulder and one still clutching her elbow, as he asked the question.

'Okay.' Ginny nodded, valiantly pretending that her head didn't feel like it was about to part company with her neck. Harry's brow furrowed and his fingers tightened on her arm slightly.

'I think you're actually getting worse at lying. Or I'm getting better at reading you. Either way, I can tell.'

Ginny couldn't help the smile. 'Fine. I'm a giant ball of pain.'

'That's my girl.' Harry smiled back. 'Listen, we didn't know who you were supposed to contact in the auror department, and we didn't want to go direct to Vance.'

Ginny nodded her appreciation. 'Thanks for that; he's going to flip his lid when I report in on the last day or so anyway, it's probably best I do it in person.'

'So who do you want us to call?'

'I can do it.' Ginny tried to rise to her feet, wobbled, and was promptly caught and steadied by Harry, whose reflexes were apparently unaffected by the incident.

'Doesn't look that way to me.' Sirius drawled from his position in the doorway. 'Just give me the name sweetheart, and I'll give them a floo while Harry tucks you back into bed.' He gave her an eyebrow wiggle that was so obscenely suggestive she blushed to the very roots of her hair, and she was incredibly grateful that it had apparently gone unnoticed by Harry.

'Auror Tonks. She's the staff trainer.'

Sirius probably couldn't have looked more surprised if she'd hit him with a broomstick. 'Tonks, as in Nymphadora Tonks?'

'Sure.' Ginny nodded, glancing between the two of them, and Harry knew she'd noticed the grin that spread across his face but he just couldn't help it; of all names, he hadn't been expecting that one.

'Nymphadora Tonks.' Sirius mused, his face breaking into one of the most cheerful smiles she'd ever seen on it. 'Oh, my life keeps getting better and better.'

He turned and headed off towards the stairs, his cheerful whistling lingering behind him.

'You should lie down.' Harry tugged Ginny gently towards the bed.

'Why am I in your bed?' Ginny asked, before realising quite how that sounded. 'I mean…'

'It was the only one that was made up.' Harry spared her from any more verbal stumbling by interrupting. 'I carried you into the house and Remus said you'd be best lying somewhere comfy and I didn't see the point in wasting time making up a spare room when mine was right here.'

It was sort of true. The fact that he'd come up with it as an excuse _after_ he'd carried her into his room and put her in his bed had no bearing on the subject at all. It had been automatic, done completely without thought, and he didn't really want to consider the implications of that right now.

'Oh. Oh well, thank you.' She perched on the edge of the bed and stared up at him. 'I should get up though. I'm sure Tonks will want to see me, and…'

'And I will wake you up when she gets here.' Harry interrupted. 'Even if you don't sleep, just lie still for a bit and give the healing charms and potions a little more time to work. Trust me, it will help. And I would know, I've been injured more times than you could shake a stick at.'

Ginny could feel every muscle in her back screaming at her to give in and just settle herself down into his mattress and sheets, but her brain was stubbornly insisting that not only did she not need to be coddled but that it would be…inadvisable…to curl herself up in Harry's bed, to sleep wrapped up in his sheets and scent. Yeah, that would do wonders for her ever-expanding crush wouldn't it?

Harry braced his weight on one arm as he leaned towards her and poked her gently in the shoulder with one long finger, and she felt her whole body sway backwards before taking a long moment to right itself. 'See?' He said gently. 'Your reflexes are shot. You're exhausted from the effort of healing, and if you'd stop being so stubborn and admit it, your back feels like someone is playing tic-tac-toe on it with a hot poker. Just…get some damn rest would you? It's the least you deserve after the day you've had.'

She knew it was giving in, knew it was a surrender she couldn't afford, but she crawled up his bed to his pillows and let him pull back his duvet and then cover her with it. The soft cotton settled around her shoulders, and she took one long, intoxicating breath of pure Harry and closed her eyes, willing him to leave so she could give in to the nervous conniptions that wanted to overtake her in peace.

'Ginny, I'm going to put some of my pyjamas on the end of the bed for you okay? If you want to get up. They won't fit, but…' His lowered voice trailed off, and she felt the mattress rise as his weight left it, heard the sliding of his wardrobe doors and the rustle of clothing, then the door clicked softly shut, and she let out the breath she'd been holding and curled up tighter, pulling her knees into her chest in some kind of hopelessly defiant gesture towards her aching heart.

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Sirius was whistling cheerfully in the kitchen, ignoring the suspicious looks he was getting from Remus as he bustled around pulling out biscuits and the makings of tea.

'You know, given the seriousness of this situation, I would think you'd be a bit less chirpy.' Remus commented dryly. 'Someone tried to blow up your godson today.'

'Not to hear Harry tell it.' Sirius responded. 'He insists that it's a scare tactic, just an escalation in the harassment. He's not worried. _I'd_ be more worried if the lovely Ms Weasley wasn't here to kick his arse into line.'

'Hmm.' Remus sipped at his mug of coffee and observed Sirius' smiling face. 'And given how badly every other Auror has failed there, she seems rather good at it. Knocking Harry into line.'

Sirius snorted a laugh and put down the sugar bowl he was holding before turning to face Remus, his grin widening. 'You have no idea. After he took off on you earlier, she came charging into my office demanding to know where she could find him. The temper was practically glowing out of her. When Harry flooed to ask me to get you and come over with healing potions, I was sure it was to fix whatever she'd done to him. I haven't seen a temper like hers since…'

He trailed off and turned back to his tea preparations, and Remus finished the sentence for him. 'Since Lily. They do say that about redheads though don't they?'

'I guess they do.' Sirius' voice had gone quiet, the smile gone from his face, and Remus felt the usual pang of sympathy for his old friend. He missed James and Lily too, missed them like a part of himself, but he didn't carry the echoes of guilt that Sirius did. Sirius would forever blame himself for convincing them to use Peter as secret keeper; he would never look at Harry and not see the evidence of his perceived failure of his best friend.

Harry strolled into the kitchen and promptly took Remus' mug from his hands and took a swig from it, pulling a face as he handed it back. 'Bleugh. Cream and sugar, that's disgusting Remus. How can you drink it?'

Remus shrugged and took another happy sip. 'I have a sweet tooth.' He eyed Harry carefully. 'How are you?'

'Fine.' Harry rolled his stiff shoulders. 'Achy. That massive glass cut on my calf is sodding agony, and my head still feels like I've been punched, but still. I'm fine.'

'And Ginny?' Asked Sirius, keeping his back to the room as he fiddled unnecessarily with packets of biscuits.

Harry hesitated. 'Okay. More sore than she's willing to admit, but that's just her. I've convinced her to lie back down for a bit anyway.'

Sirius snorted. 'Then she _must_ be ill. I've got to admit my boy, I was surprised you were unscathed when we got here; I thought she was going to hex you into oblivion after your disappearing stunt.' He turned and looked at Harry pointedly.

'It was not a stunt.' Harry answered calmly. 'I got the all-clear from the healers and I went for a walk; nothing wrong with that is there?'

Sirius and Remus both opened their mouths to respond, but then the flames in the fireplace turned a distinctive shade of green and they both re-focused their attention.

'We'll discuss this another time.' Sirius said, and Harry responded to his godfather with a simple eye-roll.

A figure appeared in the fireplace and became the outline of Tonks, pink hair tucked back behind her ears and hands tucked casually in her pockets. 'Wotcher Potter. Long time, no see.'

Harry smiled. Tonks had been one of the few people in the Order who'd been even close to his age; she was still several years older, but he had felt a kinship with her nonetheless. Her easy-going nature and natural humour had helped keep him positive in a number of dark times, and he felt a little stab of guilt that they hadn't made more of an effort to keep in touch more frequently.

'Hey Tonks. Good hair.'

'You like it?' Tonks ran a hand through it critically. 'Vance told me to get rid of the purple hair, so I went for this. I don't think it's what he meant, but he's a stuffy arse at times anyway. Sirius!'

She caught sight of the dark-haired wizard leaning against the kitchen sideboard and moved in for a hug. 'Always good to see another Black family renegade.'

Sirius wrapped his arms around her briefly. 'Well, we obviously got all the good genes didn't we? How's your mother?'

'Fine.' Tonks smiled sadly. 'She misses Dad, and worries too much about me, but she'd doing okay.'

Sirius patted her gently on the back and she turned back to the rest of the room, her eyes finally falling on Remus, who was standing stiffly near the door.

'Remus.' She way she spoke his name was less like a greeting and more of a statement. 'It's, er, been a long time.'

'A few years, yes.' He eyed her carefully. 'You've changed a little.'

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. 'Like you said, it's been a few years.'

Remus nodded again, and an uncomfortable silence fell in the room, eventually broke by Sirius' falsely cheerful voice. 'Well, let's go to the sitting room shall we, and Harry can fill us all in on the details.' He levitated the tray and led the way; Remus followed quickly and Harry and Tonks trailed along behind.

Tonks sat quietly and listened to Harry's somewhat edited version of the day's events with a careful ear, allowing him to recount his entire version before asking questions.

'So, you and Ginny were checking this rock when it exploded?'

'Yeah.' Harry nodded from his position slumped on the sofa. Tonks was such a friendly, familiar figure it was easy to forget that he was giving a statement to an auror and just relax. 'Well, actually, we'd just decided it was probably nothing when Ginny commented on it smelling strange, and then my brain kicked into gear and I realised I could smell Exploding Fluid.'

Tonks' quill slipped in her hand. 'Exploding Fluid? The stuff made from Erumpent horn?'

Harry nodded. 'Yeah, that's the stuff. Anything you soak in it will explode. It's unpredictable but dangerous as hell, and it's a Class B Tradeable Material. That's probably why Ginny recognised it; I imagine you cover all restricted materials in training.'

'We do.' Tonks nodded. 'How did _you_ recognise it?'

Sirius stiffened, and Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat as his eyes flicked to his godfather. 'Uh, I saw it in use during the War.'

'Rabastan.' Sirius interrupted, his voice dripping with disdain. 'It was Rabastan Lestrange's favourite amusement; he'd dose all manner of everyday objects with Exploding Fluid and leave them in muggle areas. Then as soon as anything disturbed them, they'd become unstable and eventually explode, often taking unsuspecting muggles with them.'

To her credit, Tonks merely jotted the information down without comment, careful not to react to the information about a distant relative that she and Sirius shared. Harry supposed that you got used to hearing unsavoury things about your family when you had as many nutters in your family tree as the Blacks did. 'It all points to an actual Death Eater then.' She chewed the end of her quill thoughtfully. 'Someone who not only hates Harry for the destruction of their leader, but who was aware of some of the events of the War that aren't common knowledge.'

'Or the family of one.' Remus broke in quietly, his eyes firmly fixed on a point away from Tonks' face. 'Someone who's heard stories from a Death Eater relative and is out for revenge.'

Tonks inclined her head, also careful not to look directly at Remus. 'Possible, and definitely worth looking into.' She dropped her quill and parchment back into her tatty leather satchel. 'So, I'll stop by the Burrow and check on Ginny, then we'll get to work on leads tomorrow.'

'Ginny's not at home.' Sirius broke in with a smile. 'She's upstairs.'

'Oh?' Tonks asked questioningly, before her face broke into an expression of understanding. _'Oh.'_

'Not like that.' Harry knew he sounded as exasperated as he felt. 'She was hurt, and even though we've healed her she was worn out, so she's getting some rest, that's all.' He stood up and glowered at his godfather. 'I'll go and get her for you.'

He stalked out of the room, and the second the door shut behind him Tonks' attention focused on Sirius. '_Is_ that all? Not that_ I_ mind, it would be good for the both of them, but I'll have to fudge some reports…it's not against the rules as such, but it is definitely frowned upon…'

Sirius interrupted. 'I don't know exactly; I don't think anything's happened…_yet_. I can read Harry like a book, and I can see that he likes her. I'm not sure if the feeling's mutual, but if you were asking me to bet, I'd bet on it being the case.'

Remus opened his mouth to speak but shut it again when voices floated along the corridor outside.

'I can walk by myself you know, you don't need to help me along like we're in some eighteenth century novel.'

'It's good manners to help a lady walk when she's a little unsteady, have you never encountered good manners before?'

'Well thank you Mr Bingley, but I'm fine.'

'Don't be facetious.'

'I'm not, I'm pointing out the stupidity, and the unnecessary nature, of your actions, not to mention the chauvinism inherent in them.'

'Chivalry and chauvinism are_ not_ the same, and I can't help it okay? Ingrained childhood training is very difficult to ignore, even as an adult.'

The door handle moved, and Tonks, Sirius and Remus all shifted in their seats and tried very hard to pretend that they hadn't been eavesdropping. Harry came in first, holding the door open for Ginny who moved stiffly but seemed otherwise okay, though Tonks especially had trouble supressing her smile at Ginny's appearance.

She was wearing loose, pyjama bottoms with a faded blue check pattern - obviously Harry's and also obviously from some time ago, since Ginny could wear them without them actually falling down, though they were still far too large - and a t-shirt that bagged around the neckline and hung loosely on her small frame.

After Ginny had reassured every one of her recovery, she recounted the day's events from her point of view. Aside from a few details, her story lined up with Harry's, though the other three all noticed and were intrigued by the fact that both of them had hesitated at precisely the same parts.

Tonks stood to leave and smiled around the room, a flicker of a devious expression crossing her face. 'Ginny, you should consider staying here tonight if Harry doesn't mind. Travelling by floo or apparition wouldn't be very good for your injuries anyway, and I imagine the Ministry will want to step up protection in light of this incident anyway; Vance will be happier about all this if I can tell him you stayed at your post.'

Ginny hesitated, her eyes automatically sliding over to Harry. 'I'm not sure…'

Harry's eyes met hers. 'I don't mind; it's not like I don't have room. If it will help you out with Vance, and help you get better, stay.'

'That's that then.' Tonks smiled cheerily around the room. 'I'll go tell your parents, collect some clothes for you and drop them back here. Half an hour, tops.'

She disappeared out of the room, with Sirius following along, as manners dictated that guests be shown out and he was as bad as Harry, if not worse, for old-fashioned niceties. Remus hesitated for a brief moment before following, leaving Harry and Ginny to look at each other anxiously across the room.

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This was torture, Harry thought bitterly. A new and evil form of torture worse than anything the Death Eaters could ever have thought up. Who would have thought that Tonks - sweet, hilarious Tonks - was capable of inflicting so much misery on him?

He turned over onto his side and stared at the French doors that led to his balcony; he'd left his curtains open so that the moonlight filtered in. He'd always liked the night sky, and one of the many things he liked about living in such a sparsely populated area was that the lack of light pollution meant he could see the stars most nights. He tried to focus on that, on thoughts of stargazing and peaceful nights, while trying _very _hard not to think about the fact that Ginny was sleeping down the hall. Just a few doors away. A few steps, and he'd be there in the room with her.

Torture.

She'd adamantly refused his bed - despite his protests that it was the most comfortable, that her injuries were much worse than his and that she'd already been sleeping in it anyway - and was sleeping in the largest of the guest rooms along the hall.

That didn't help his predicament one little bit. In fact, he suspected it made it _worse_, because now he was sleeping – or trying to sleep – in the bed that she'd been in not a few hours earlier. Her hair had been spread out across these pillows, her bare legs had been wrapped in this duvet; Merlin, her _mouth_ had probably touched _his_ pillow. His face might be resting on the exact spot her face had been touching hours before.

And thoughts like these were not helping him sleep. With a groan he sat upright and rubbed his eyes. Usually when he woke up in the middle of the night, he'd go running. Of course, if he was awake at this time of night it was normally because he'd had a nightmare rather than because there was a beautiful girl sleeping just down the hall, but he figured that jogging would be just as good for sexual frustration as for working off demons.

Unfortunately, he just didn't feel comfortable going out and leaving Ginny here. It wasn't that he was uncomfortable with having her in his house - if anything he thought he probably liked it a little _too_ much - but that he didn't want her to wake up and find he wasn't there if she needed something.

He rolled out of bed, ignoring the fresh burst of Ginny's scent that assaulted his nostrils as he rolled across the pillows, and stretched his aching muscles before padding over to the door and leaving his bedroom, and hopefully all thoughts of sliding into bed with Ginny, behind.

He crossed the hallway to his study and went directly to his desk, pulling out a thick sheaf of paperwork from a drawer and settling down in his chair. If he was awake, he might as well be productive.

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Ginny's night had been mostly fantastic, if a little…unsettling. On the one hand, it seemed Harry's bed was the rule rather than the exception, because his guest room had an equally comfortable mattress, and sheets and pillows that were just as soft and comforting. Then again, his pyjamas were wonderfully soft and fragrant as well.

Tonks had been true to her word and had dropped off a small overnight bag for her, gathered from the Burrow when she'd stopped in to let her parents know she wouldn't be home; Tonks had assured them that Ginny was fine and was merely having to stay away for the night as part of her assignment, and they knew better than to try and worm any extra detail about confidential cases and had accepted it at face value.

So there was no real reason for her to still be wearing the pyjamas Harry had given her to replace the clothing that had been shredded in the blast – she still needed to find out exactly _who _had put her into one of his shirts actually – but here she was, waking up the next morning still wrapped in the oversized clothes, and actually feeling oddly, absurdly, happy about that.

The only downside to the entire thing had been how long it had taken her to actually go to sleep, since her brain had taken the opportunity to point out repeatedly that Harry was sleeping, probably half-naked, just along the hall, and so she could quite easily sneak into his room at any time. If she wanted to of course. Which she…didn't.

Still, when she eventually woke, the sun was up and light was filtering around the blinds of the guest room she was occupying and her muscles felt almost normal again; there was still some tightness of movement around her shoulders, but in general she had almost full range of motion back. She was still a little tired, but she supposed that was to be expected after she'd had to expend so much energy on healing.

She slid out of the bed and reached for her bag, pulling out a pair of shorts and a tank top that could pass for pyjamas, because while there was no way she was going to stroll downstairs to look for Harry while she was still wearing his clothes, she also didn't want to look like she'd tried too hard to appear presentable.

She followed the smell of coffee to the kitchen and found Harry, surprisingly alert for this hour of the morning, given his habit of rising late, sitting at the table surrounding by paperwork.

'Hey.' She knew she sounded a little shy, but she couldn't help it; the dynamic between them had shifted again, and now she was houseguest rather than auror, and everything felt odd again after that brief moment that had felt a little like resolution yesterday.

His head lifted instantly at her words, and his face creased into a smile of genuine welcome, and all her nerves fled again at the sight. He lifted the coffee pot to fill a cup for her, giving his eyes something to do other than look at her in those little shorts, and she crossed the kitchen to join him at the table. 'Those fit you better than mine.'

'Well, that's hardly surprising is it, you bloody giant.' Harry laughed, and Ginny looked down so she wouldn't have to look him in the eye when she asked her next question. 'And on that topic, how did I end up in your shirt yesterday?'

Harry glanced at her, worried when he realised that she was deliberately not looking at him that she was panicked that he'd seen her half naked. 'Your clothes were shredded by the amount of glass that hit you. Really, Ginny, I was worried by how much there was; Sirius undressed you down to your underwear and covered you with a towel, and then I came in and the two of us pulled all the glass out, cleaned the cuts with Remus' potions and then I left again while he dressed you in one of my shirts. It was the only thing we could think of that we could put you in without hurting you or re-opening any wounds.'

He didn't explain any further, didn't tell her about the row the three of them had had about who should undress her, or about his outright refusal to see her without something covering her, despite Sirius' arguments that seeing her in her underwear was no different than seeing her in a bikini; it _felt _different. It wasn't that he didn't_ want _to see her – his thoughts last night had hovered uncomfortably around that point – he just didn't want to see her body broken and bruised while she was unconscious and unaware. He wanted to see her…well, never mind. It would have felt like a betrayal, and that had been enough to engage his stubbornness.

'Oh.' She did sound relieved, though she was obviously trying to hide it. 'What are you doing?' She looked around interestedly at the mounds of paperwork. 'You must have been at this for hours.'

He shrugged as he continued to scan the parchment he was reading, picking up his quill to add notes. 'Couldn't sleep. Started sorting this stuff in my office then decided to move to where the coffee was.' He slid the pile of parchment nearest him towards Ginny, who picked up the top piece.

'Antonin Dolohov, captured by F Flitwick, Battle of Hogwarts.' Her eyes scanned the rest of the page. 'Death Eater profiles?'

'Everyone I know that worked closely with Lestrange.' Harry responded absently. 'Everyone who is likely to know about his predilection for Exploding Potion.'

Ginny nodded absently as she began to leaf gently through the pile. Harry had explained the strange smell surrounding the rock last night, and as soon as he'd put a name to it she'd remembered smelling it during her auror training. She hadn't known about the Death Eaters' liking for it though; either that was above her security clearance, or it wasn't widely known in the department. She was inclined to think it was probably the latter. She might not have known Harry long, but she'd very quickly become aware that he preferred to keep information close to his chest, and the Order had never been known for being chatty about their activities.

'Alecto Carrow, killed by N Tonks, trying to escape custody.' Seeing Tonks' name in print reminded Ginny of a question she'd meant to ask yesterday. 'What was up with Tonks and Remus yesterday? Talk about awkward vibes.'

The corner of Harry's mouth lifted in a smile. 'Spotted that did you? There's, uh, _history_ there. That's why Sirius was so gleeful about her being your contact; he's been dying to get Tonks and Remus in the same room again.'

'So, they…what they _dated_?'

Harry jerked a shoulder and dropped his quill on the table next to him. 'Not exactly. Tonks wanted to, and she's a straightforward kind of girl so she just told him she liked him, but he wasn't having any of it.'

Ginny frowned, slightly offended on her friend's behalf. 'Why not? Tonks is great.'

Harry dropped his quill and rolled his shoulders before settling his gaze on her. 'I know that. It was never about Tonks, it was about Remus and his ridiculous concept that he doesn't deserve to have something like that in his life.'

Ginny looked puzzled, but rather than ask a question she simply raised an eyebrow at him and waited to see what he'd offer. Standard auror technique; if you don't know what to ask, don't ask anything, and it's highly likely that the other person will feel the need to volunteer information just to fill the uncomfortable silence. It had always served her well in the past, but Harry just twitched his lips and leaned towards her, obviously aware of what she was up to.

'Can I trust you Ginny?'

She leaned back in her seat, mildly offended. 'Of course you can, I'm an auror who's assigned to protect you.'

'I wasn't asking you if I could trust you with my life; I already _know _I can do that. I was asking if I can trust you with my secrets, and those of my friends.'

Ginny's brow creased. 'Of course.'

'Remus is a werewolf.'

She blinked repeatedly. 'I'm sorry?'

'I find it's usually best to avoid preamble with these things. Remus is a werewolf, he thinks he's a monster, and he won't become involved with anybody because of it. Tonks didn't give a damn, of course, but in the end he wouldn't be convinced, not even by Sirius. Sirius said that the only ones who could convince Remus when he got like that…were my mum and dad.' His voice became quiet on the last sentence, and he looked back down at the table, picking up another sheet of paper and retrieved his quill, resuming his scratching in silence.

'Oh.' Ginny sat quietly for a moment, absorbing the new information. 'Oh.' She said again, before calmly reaching for the next piece of parchment and continuing her scan of his documents. He felt a brief surge of admiration for how she'd handled that, and smiled down at his own parchment despite his passing sadness.

They were interrupted only moments later by quiet tapping on the window that indicated the arrival of owl post. 'Is it me or is it late today?' Harry asked as he crossed to the window to let the owl in.

Ginny checked her watch. 'It's late. Maybe they were being a bit over-zealous with the curse checking today.'

'Hmm. There are two for you actually. How the hell do the owls know where you are, I've never worked that out.' He dropped the letters in front of her and opened the morning paper, skimming the pages as was his habit, when all of a sudden he froze.

'I'm not sure you're going to want to read those letters.'

'Hmm?' Ginny looked up from opening her mail and frowned at him. Instead of explaining, he folded the newspaper and turned it so she could see the gossip column he was looking at.

**Potter Off The Market?**

**The elusive - and notoriously private – Falmouth Falcon's seeker Harry Potter was yesterday seen by one of this reporter's most reliable sources in the company of auror Ginny Weasley. The pair admitted their relationship when questioned, and seemed very happy, though our source did state that they seemed unsettled by questions about their burgeoning romance. This reporter will endeavour to find out more folks, and will report back, so keep an eye out for more!**

**Pavarti Patil**

Ginny groaned when she reached the end. 'Oh bugger. I didn't realise that Pavarti worked for the Prophet, or I might have pushed Romilda a little harder to keep her mouth shut. I knew they were best friends.'

Harry eyed her apologetically. 'Ginny, I…'

'Oh, can it Potter.' Ginny scowled as she interrupted. 'We hashed this one out yesterday remember? This was bound to happen eventually, I just hoped it would be a bit more…controlled when it did.' She looked at the two letters on the table in front of her and grimaced as she picked one up. 'Time to face the thestrals I suppose.'

'Grab the Erumpent by the horn?' Harry suggested helpfully, secretly thrilled when she laughed, because she couldn't be mad at him when she laughed at him like that could she?

She opened the first letter and sighed before handing it to Harry.

_Weasley, my office, today at 11.30am._

_C Vance_

He looked up at her. 'Want me to come?'

She snorted. 'Because that wouldn't make things a million times worse.' She picked up the second letter, wincing when she saw the familiar handwriting.

_Ginny,_

_We don't know what's going on sweetheart, but there's an article in the Prophet that you should read if you haven't already. You know you can tell us anything, and we don't understand why you would keep something like that from us. We only care about your happiness. Come and talk to us when you're ready. It's family dinner night though, and we'd love it if you could make it.'_

_Love mum and dad_

_PS, we haven't heard from your brothers yet, but I would expect a few more owls today. _

Ginny looked up at Harry's concerned face. 'Bad?' He asked gently.

'No. No, just faint disappointment which might be worse.' She smiled at his concerned face. 'Don't worry, I'll explain to them and everything will be okay. You are still okay with that aren't you?'

Harry shrugged. 'Probably the least I can do for you at the moment to be honest.'

'Actually…' Ginny looked up at him. 'There is something else you can do for me.'

Harry raised his eyebrows expectantly, and she flicked her eyes back down to her parents' letter then back to his face. 'Did you have any plans for dinner?'

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**A/N: Again I'm sorry for the long gap between updates, and I hope you enjoy the chapter anyway. Leave me a review if you liked it. Or hated it, or were totally indifferent for that matter. **


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